The French Revolution (French: Révolution française[ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies.[1] Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history.[2][3][4]

External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, the Revolutionary Wars beginning in 1792 ultimately featured French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had eluded previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins, the dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, from 1793 until 1794, established price controls on food and other items, abolished slavery in French colonies abroad, dechristianised society through the creation of a new calendar and the expulsion of religious figures, and secured the borders of the new republic from its enemies. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, with estimates ranging from 16,000 to 40,000,[6] after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, and significant military conquests abroad.[7] Dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. Napoleon, who became the hero of the Revolution through his popular military campaigns, went on to establish the Consulate and later the First Empire, setting the stage for a wider array of global conflicts in the Napoleonic Wars.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. Almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor,[8] its central phrases and cultural symbols, such as La Marseillaise and Liberté, fraternité, égalité, ou la mort, became the clarion call for other major upheavals in modern history, including the Russian Revolution over a century later.[9]

The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the Revolution resulted in the suppression of the feudal system, the emancipation of the individual, the greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth and the establishment of equality. The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity.[10]

Causes

The French government faced fiscal crises in the 1780s, and King Louis XVI was blamed for mishandling these affairs.

Historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Rising social and economic inequality,[13][14] new political ideas emerging from the Enlightenment,[15] economic mismanagement, environmental factors leading to agricultural failure, unmanageable national debt,[16] and political mismanagement on the part of King Louis XVI have all been cited as laying the groundwork for the Revolution.[17][18][19][20]

Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the "public sphere" in France and elsewhere in Europe.[21] Habermas argued that the dominant cultural model in 17th century France was a "representational" culture, which was based on a one-sided need to "represent" power with one side active and the other passive.[21] A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV.[21] Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the "public sphere" which was "critical" in that both sides were active.[22] Examples of the "public sphere" included newspapers, journals, masonic lodges, coffee houses and reading clubs where people either in person or virtually via the printed word debated and discussed issues;[23] in France, the emergence of the "public sphere" outside of the control of the state saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France.[23] Likewise, in the 17th century it was the court that decided what was culturally good and what was not; in the 18th century, the opinion of the court mattered less and it was the consumers who became the arbiters of cultural taste.[24] In the 1750s, during the "Querelle des Bouffons" over the question of the quality of Italian vs. French music, the partisans of both sides appealed to the French public "because it alone has the right to decide whether a work will be preserved for posterity or will be used by grocers as wrapping-paper";[25] in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote: "The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV. Reigning opinions are no longer received from the court; it no longer decides on reputations of any sort ... The court's judgments are countermanded; one says openly that it understands nothing; it has no ideas on the subject and could have none."[26] Inevitably, the belief that public opinion had the right to decide cultural questions instead of deferring to the court transformed itself into the demand that the public also have a say on political questions as well.[27]

The economy in the Ancien Régime during the years preceding the Revolution suffered from instability; poor harvests lasting several years and an inadequate transportation system both contributed to making food more expensive.[28][29] The sequence of events leading to the Revolution included the national government's fiscal troubles caused by an inefficient tax system and expenditure on numerous large wars,[16] the attempt to challenge British naval and commercial power in the Seven Years' War was a costly disaster, with the loss of France's colonial possessions in continental North America and the destruction of the French Navy.[30] French forces were rebuilt and feeling bitter about having lost many of France's overseas colonies to the British Empire during the Seven Years' War, Louis XVI was eager to give the American rebels financial and military support, after the British surrender at the Battle of Saratoga, the French sent 10,000 troops and millions of dollars to the rebels. Despite succeeding in gaining independence for the Thirteen Colonies, France was severely indebted by the American Revolutionary War.[citation needed] France's inefficient and antiquated financial system could not finance this debt.[31] Faced with a financial crisis, the king called an Estates General, recommended by the Assembly of Notables in 1787 for the first time in over a century.[32]

France was experiencing such a severe economic depression that there wasn't enough food to go around, as with most monarchies, the upper class was always insured a stable living so while the rich remained very wealthy, the majority of the French population was starving. Many were so destitute that they couldn't even feed their families and resorted to theft or prostitution to stay alive. Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was isolated from and indifferent to the escalating crisis. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parliaments successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms, the Enlightenment had produced many writers, pamphleteers and publishers who could inform or inflame public opinion. The opposition used this resource to mobilise public opinion against the monarchy, which in turn tried to repress the underground literature.[31]

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals, these included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, labourers and the bourgeoisie towards the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Catholic Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger towards the King for dismissing ministers, including finance minister Jacques Necker, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.[33]

Freemasonry played an important role in the revolution. Originally largely apolitical, Freemasonry was radicalised in the late 18th century through the introduction of higher grades which emphasised themes of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Virtually every major player in the Revolution was a Freemason and these themes became the widely recognised slogan of the revolution.[34]

Ancien Régime

Financial crisis

Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.

Louis XVI ascended to the throne in the middle of a financial crisis in which the state was faced with a budget deficit and was nearing bankruptcy.[35] This was due in part to France's costly involvements in the Seven Years' War and later the American Revolution;[36] in May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after failing to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance, he could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant.[37]

Necker realised that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden,[37] while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy,[38] he argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the parlements.[37]

This was not received well by the King's ministers, and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister, the King refused, Necker was dismissed, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership.[37] Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realised the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code.[39]

The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables, but the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614, this was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.[40]

Estates-General of 1789

The Estates-General was organised into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France, it had last met in 1614. Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males, aged 25 years or more, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes. Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including 303 clergy, 291 nobles and 610 members of the Third Estate, the First Estate represented 100,000 Catholic clergy; the Church owned about 10% of the land and collected its own taxes (the tithe) on peasants. The lands were controlled by bishops and abbots of monasteries, but two-thirds of the 303 delegates from the First Estate were ordinary parish priests; only 51 were bishops.[41] The Second Estate represented the nobility, about 400,000 men and women who owned about 25% of the land and collected seigneurial dues and rents from their peasant tenants. About a third of these deputies were nobles, mostly with minor holdings, the Third Estate representation was doubled to 610 men, representing 95% of the population. Half were well educated lawyers or local officials. Nearly a third were in trades or industry; 51 were wealthy land owners.[42][43]

The meeting of the Estates General on 5 May 1789 at Versailles.

To assist delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems,[44] the books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare.[45][46]

Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship,[47] the Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? (What is the Third Estate?) published in January, 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something."[48]

The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker, the Third Estate demanded that the credentials of deputies should be verified by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members, but negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The commoners appealed to the clergy, who asked for more time. Necker then stated that each estate should verify its own members' credentials and that the king should act as arbitrator.[49]

National Assembly (1789)

The middle class were the ones who fanned the flames of revolution, they established the National Assembly and tried to pressure the aristocracy to spread their money evenly between the upper, middle and lower classes. On 10 June 1789 Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons") proceed with verifying its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them, they proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June.[50] Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People", they invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.[51]

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, and fearing an attack ordered by Louis XVI, they met in a tennis court just outside Versailles, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.[52]

Constitutional Monarchy

National Constituent Assembly (July 1789 – September 1791)

Storming of the Bastille

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.[53]

Many Parisians presumed Louis' actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day, they were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting, the mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers.[54]

On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power, after several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a ceasefire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard-René de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behaviour, and a murder suspect) the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the Ancien Régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.[55]

The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being, the Marquis de Lafayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolorecockade, to cries of Vive la Nation ("Long live the Nation") and Vive le Roi ("Long live the King").[56]

Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.

As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighbouring countries; many of these émigrés, as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.[57]

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France; in rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.[58]

Also the tithe (a 10% tax for the Church, gathered by the First Estate (clergy)) was abolished which had been the main source of income for many clergymen,[60] during the course of a few hours nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.[61]

Without debate the Assembly enthusiastically adopted equality of taxation and redemption of all manorial rights except for those involving personal servitude—which were to be abolished without indemnification. Other proposals followed with the same success: the equality of legal punishment, admission of all to public office, abolition of venality in office,[62] conversion of the tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, prohibition of plural holding of benefices ... Privileges of provinces and towns were offered as a last sacrifice.[63]

Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than a fourth of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners.[64] The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled, thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the tithe to the church.[65]

Furet emphasises that the decisions of August 1789 survived and became an integral part of

the founding texts of modern France. They destroyed aristocratic society from top to bottom, along with its structure of dependencies and privileges, for this structure they substituted the modern, autonomous individual, free to do whatever was not prohibited by law ... The Revolution thus distinguished itself quite early by its radical individualism [66]

The old judicial system, based on the 13 regional parlements, was suspended in November 1789, and officially abolished in September 1790, the main institutional pillars of the old regime had vanished overnight.[67]

Writing the first constitution

Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people, the bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly, the King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 départements, uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.[67]

Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Women's March on Versailles

Fuelled by rumours of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789, at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789, crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets, the women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.[69] The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages, they also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of Lafayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards.[70] Lafayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimising the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church

In this caricature, monks and nuns enjoy their new freedom after the decree of 16 February 1790

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state.[71] Under the Ancien Régime, the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom,[72] the Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, only a fraction of which it then redistributed to the poor.[72]

Resentment towards the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789, the Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body,[73] the National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe; in an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation".[74] They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned;[75] in December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years.[76] In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved.[77]Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.[78]

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church; in October a group of 30 bishops wrote a declaration saying they could not accept that law, and this protest fueled also civilian opposition against that law.[60] Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy,[78] this led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Priests swearing the oath were indicated as 'constitutional', those not taking the oath as 'non-juring' or 'refractory' clergy.[79] Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath,[80] this decree stiffened the resistance against the state’s interference with the church, especially in the west of France like in Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée, where only few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the revolution.[60]

Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors".[76]Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France.

A new Republican Calendar was established in 1793, with 10-day weeks that made it very difficult for Catholics to remember Sundays and saints' days. Workers complained it reduced the number of first-day-of-the-week holidays from 52 to 37.[81]

During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianisation ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones, the establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianisation. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianisation by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign,[82] replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianisation period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée.[83]

Historians Lynn Hunt and Jack Censer argue that some French Protestants, the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime, and that Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment.[84] Historian John McManners writes, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."[85]

The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left; in Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under Lafayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies.

The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the Ancien Régime – armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the Fête de la Fédération; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.[86]

The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the communes had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.[87]

In late 1790 the French army was in considerable disarray, the military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them, at Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.[88]

This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organisation for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these factions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.[89]

Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne, the legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war, the Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practise a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.[90]

Royal flight to Varennes

The return of the royal family to Paris on 25 June 1791, after their failed flight to Varennes

Louis XVI was increasingly dismayed by the direction of the revolution, his brother, the Comte d'Artois and his queen, Marie Antoinette, urged a stronger stance against the revolution and support for the émigrés, while he was resistant to any course that would see him openly side with foreign powers against the Assembly. Eventually, fearing for his own safety and that of his family, he decided to flee Paris to the Austrian border, having been assured of the loyalty of the border garrisons.

Louis cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy, on the night of 20 June 1791 the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.

However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes and returned to Paris, the Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard,[91] the King's flight had a profound impact on public opinion, turning popular sentiment further against the clergy and nobility, and built momentum for the institution of a constitutional monarchy.[91]

Completing the constitution

As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.

However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order", the National Guard under Lafayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people,[92] the incident cost Lafayette and his National Guard much public support.

In the wake of the massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.[93]

Although Leopold himself sought to avoid war and made the declaration to satisfy the Comte d'Artois and the other émigrés, the reaction within France was ferocious, the French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.[96]

Even before the Flight to Varennes, the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly, they now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators, with this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.[97]

Legislative Assembly (Oct.1791–Sept.1792)

The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, elected by those 4 million men – out of a population of 25 million – who paid a certain minimum amount of taxes.[98] Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy, the King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers.

Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the émigrés with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.

Late 1791, a group of Assembly members who propagated war against Austria and Prussia was, after some remark of politician Maximilien Robespierre, henceforth indicated as the 'Girondins', although not all of them really came from the southern province of Gironde. A group around Robespierre – later indicated as 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins' – pleaded against that war; this opposition between those groups would harden and embitter in the next 1½ years.[94]

The Legislative Assembly degenerated into chaos before October 1792. Francis Charles Montague concluded in 1911, "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether, it left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot."[100]

Lyons argues that the Constituent Assembly had liberal, rational, and individualistic goals that seem to have been largely achieved by 1791. However, it failed to consolidate the gains of the Revolution, which continued with increasing momentum and escalating radicalism until 1794. Lyons identifies six reasons for this escalation. First, the king did not accept the limitations on his powers, and mobilised support from foreign monarchs to reverse it. Second, the effort to overthrow the Roman Catholic Church, sell off its lands, close its monasteries and its charitable operations, and replace it with an unpopular makeshift system caused deep consternation among the pious and the peasants. Third, the economy was badly hurt by the issuance of ever increasing amounts of paper money (assignats), which caused more and more inflation; the rising prices hurt the urban poor who spent most of their income on food. Fourth, the rural peasants demanded liberation from the heavy system of taxes and dues owed to local landowners. Fifth, the working class of Paris and the other cities—the sans-culottes—resented the fact that the property owners and professionals had taken all the spoils of the Revolution. Finally, foreign powers threatened to overthrow the Revolution, which responded with extremism and systematic violence in its own defence.[101]

Around 8:00am the king decided to leave his palace and seek safety with his wife and children in the Assembly that was gathered in permanent session in Salle du Manège opposite to the Tuileries,[102] the royal family became prisoners.[104] After 11:00am, a rump session of the Legislative Assembly 'temporarily relieved the king from his task'[102] and thus suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.[104] In reaction, on 19 August the Prussian general Duke of Brunswick invaded France[105] and besieged Longwy.[106]

26 August, the Assembly decreed the deportation of refractory priests in the west of France, as "causes of danger to the fatherland", to destinations like French Guiana. In reaction, peasants in the Vendée took over a town, in another step toward civil war.[106] What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune, with enemy troops advancing, the Commune looked for potential traitors in Paris.[107][108]

The Commune sent gangs of National Guardsmen and fereres into the prisons to kill 10 or more victims, mostly nonjuring priests, the Commune then sent a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example, and many cities launched their own massacres of prisoners and priests in the "September massacres". The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance; in October, however, there was a counterattack accusing the instigators, especially Marat, of being terrorists. This led to a political contest between the more moderate Girondists and the more radical Montagnards inside the Convention, with rumour used as a weapon by both sides, the Girondists lost ground when they seemed too conciliatory. But the pendulum swung again and after Thermidor, the men who had endorsed the massacres were denounced as terrorists.[107][108]

Chaos persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new de facto government of France, the next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. The following day – 22 September 1792, the first morning of the new Republic – was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.[110]

French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars

From 1793 to 1815 France was engaged almost continuously (with two short breaks) in wars with Britain and a changing coalition of other major powers, the many French successes led to the spread of the French revolutionary ideals into neighbouring countries, and indeed across much of Europe. However, the final defeat of Napoleon in 1814 (and 1815) brought a reaction that reversed some – but not all – of the revolutionary achievements in France and Europe, the Bourbons were restored to the throne, with the brother of executed King Louis XVI becoming King Louis XVIII.

French victory over the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy on 20 September 1792

The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies, the King, many of the Feuillants, and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France, the forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalisation of the revolution, on the other end of the political spectrum Robespierre opposed a war on two grounds, fearing that it would strengthen the monarchy and military at the expense of the revolution, and that it would incur the anger of ordinary people in Austria and elsewhere. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792.[111] France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later, the invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792) and was forced to withdraw.

The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792, the French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France, after the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793, at the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.

The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories, they defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering the Dutch Republic itself, the House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France.

Slave revolt in Saint Domingue

Colonial uprisings

Although the French Revolution had a dramatic impact in numerous areas of Europe, the French colonies felt a particular influence, as the Martinican author Aimé Césaire put it, "there was in each French colony a specific revolution, that occurred on the occasion of the French Revolution, in tune with it."[112] The Haitian Revolution (Saint Domingue) became a central example of slave uprisings in French colonies.

First Republic

National Convention (Sept.1792–95)

On 20 September 1792, the new National Convention replaced the Legislative Assembly, from the start the Convention suffered from the bitter division between a group around Robespierre, Danton and Marat referred to as 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins' or 'left' and a group referred to as 'Girondins' or 'right'. But the majority of the representatives, referred to as 'la Plaine', were member of neither of those two antagonistic groups and managed to preserve some speed in the Convention's debates.[109][113]

In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy, this among other things made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. On 17 January 1793 Louis was condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions, the former Louis XVI, now simply named Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet) was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the Place de la Révolution, former Place Louis XV, now called the Place de la Concorde.[115] Conservatives across Europe were horrified and monarchies called for war against revolutionary France.[116][117]

Economy

When war went badly, prices rose and the sans-culottes – poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders.[118]

This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror, the Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods.[119] Widespread shortages and famine ensued, the Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"[120]

Reign of Terror

'Reign of Terror' is a label used by some historians for (part of) French history between July 1789 and July 1794, but those historians adhere that label to different periods.

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–94). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities,[121] as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.[121][122]

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections – encouraged by the enragés ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone.[123] With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the revolutionary dictatorship.[124]

On 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I, it was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.[125]

On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat – a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric – by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.[124]

The Reign of Terror ultimately weakened the revolutionary government, while temporarily ending internal opposition, the Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with soldiers who had demonstrated their patriotism, if not their ability. The Republican army repulsed the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish, at the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy. However, this policy was never fully implemented.[126]

Three approaches attempt to explain the Reign of Terror imposed by the Jacobins in 1793–94, the older Marxist interpretation argued the Terror was a necessary response to outside threats (in terms of other countries going to war with France) and internal threats (of traitors inside France threatening to frustrate the Revolution). In this interpretation, as expressed by the Marxist historian Albert Soboul, Robespierre and the sans-culottes were heroes for defending the revolution from its enemies. François Furet has argued that foreign threats had little to do with the terror.[127] Instead, the extreme violence was an inherent part of the intense ideological commitment of the revolutionaries – their utopian goals required exterminating opposition. Soboul's Marxist interpretation has been largely abandoned by most historians since the 1990s. Hanson (2009) takes a middle position, recognising the importance of the foreign enemies, and sees the terror as a contingency that was caused by the interaction of a series of complex events and the foreign threat. Hanson says the terror was not inherent in the ideology of the Revolution, but that circumstances made it necessary.[128]

North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels);[133] in March 1793, France also declared war on Spain, the Vendée rebels won some victories against Paris, and the French army was defeated in Belgium by Austria with the French general Dumouriez defecting to the Austrians: the French Republic's survival was now in real danger.[113] Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war,[134] on 6 April 1793, to prevent the Convention from losing itself in abstract debate and to streamline government decisions, the Comité de salut public (Committee of Public Prosperity) was created, as executive government which was accountable to the Convention.[113]

Girondins expelled

In April 1793, the 'Girondins' group indicted Jean-Paul Marat before the Revolutionary Tribunal for 'attempting to destroy the sovereignty of the people' and 'preaching plunder and massacre', referring to his behaviour during the September 1792 Paris massacres. Marat was quickly acquitted but the incident further acerbated the 'Girondins' versus 'Montagnards' party strife in the Convention.[113]

Jacques Hébert, Convention member leaning to the 'Montagnards' group, on 24 May 1793 called on the sans-culottes to rise in revolt against the "henchmen of Capet [the ex-king] and Dumouriez [the defected general]". Hébert was arrested by a Convention committee. While that committee consisted only of members from la Plaine and the Girondins, the anger of the sans-culottes was directed towards the Girondins. 25 May, a delegation of la Commune (the Paris city council) protested against Hébert’s arrest. The Convention’s President Isnard, a Girondin, answered them: "Members of la Commune (…) If by your incessant rebellions something befalls to the representatives of the nation, I declare, in the name of France, that Paris will be totally obliterated".[113]

On 2 June 1793, the Convention's session in Tuileries Palace degenerated into chaos and pandemonium. Crowds of people swarmed in and around the palace. Incessant screaming from the public galeries suggested that all of Paris was against the Girondins. Petitions circulated, indicting and condemning 22 Girondins. Barère, member of the Comité de salut public, suggested: to end this division which is harming the Republic, the Girondin leaders should lay down their offices voluntarily. Late that night after much more tumultuous debate, indeed dozens of Girondins had resigned and left the Convention.[113]

Abounding civil war

By the summer of 1793, most French departments in one way or another opposed the central Paris government, and in many cases 'Girondins', fled from Paris after 2 June, led those revolts;[135] in Brittany's countryside, the people rejecting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 had taken to a guerrilla warfare known as Chouannerie.[129] But generally, the French opposition against 'Paris' had now evolved into a plain struggle for power over the country[135] against the 'Montagnards' around Robespierre and Marat now dominating Paris.[129]

On 17 August 1793, the Convention voted for general conscription, the levée en masse, which mobilised all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort,[134] the consecutive successes in the French revolutionary wars earned Lazare Carnot the title 'Organizer of Victory'.[136][137]

In August–September 1793, militants urged the Convention to do more to quell the counter-revolution. A delegation of the Commune (Paris city council) suggested to form revolutionary armies to arrest hoarders and conspirators.[129] Barère, member of the Committee of Public Prosperity—the de facto executive government—ever since April 1793,[135] among others on 5 September reacted favorably, saying: let's "make terror the order of the day!"[129] The National Convention on 9 September voted to establish sans-culottes paramilitary forces, revolutionary armies, and to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government.[134] On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which ordered the arrest of suspected counter-revolutionaries and people who had revealed themselves as "enemies of freedom",[138] this decree was one of the causes for some 17,000 legal death sentences until the end of July 1794, an average of 370 per week – reason for historians to label those 10½ months 'the (Reign of) Terror'.[139][140]

On 1 October Barère repeated his plea to subdue the Vendée: "refuge of fanaticism, where priests have raised their altars…";[130] in October the Convention troops captured Lyon and reinstated a Montagnard government there.[129]

Criteria for bringing someone before the Revolutionary Tribunal, created March 1793, had always been vast and vague.[135] By August, political disagreement seemed enough to be summoned before the Tribunal; appeal against a Tribunal verdict was impossible.[129] Late August 1793, an army general had been guillotined on the accusation of choosing too timid strategies on the battlefield.[129] Mid-October, the widowed former queen Marie Antoinette was on trial for a long list of charges such as "teaching [her husband] Louis Capet the art of dissimulation" and incest with her son, she too was guillotined;[129] in October 1793, 21 former 'Girondins' Convention members who hadn't left Paris after June were convicted to death and executed, on the charge of verbally supporting the preparation of an insurrection in Caen by fellow-Girondins.[129]

By November 1793, the revolts in Normandy, Bordeaux and Lyon were overcome, in December also that in Toulon.[129] Two representatives on mission sent to punish Lyon between November 1793 and April 1794 executed 2,000 people to death by guillotine or firing-squad,[135] the Vendéan army since October roaming through Brittany on 12 December 1793 again ran up against Republican troops and saw 10,000 of its rebels perish, meaning the end of this once threatening army.[135]

Some historians claim that after that Vendéan defeat Convention Republic armies in 1794 massacred 117,000 Vendéan civilians to obliterate the Vendéan people, but others contest that claim,[142] some historians consider the total civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of 170,000[143] or 450,000 lives.[144][145]

Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide".[146][147][148] Historian François Furet concluded that the repression in the Vendee "not only revealed massacre and destruction on an unprecedented scale but also a zeal so violent that it has bestowed as its legacy much of the region's identity."[149]

Profuse executions

The guillotine became the tool for a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

Nine emigrants go to the guillotine in 1793

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process.[citation needed] Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them.[citation needed] Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel); in the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ("drownings") he organised in Nantes;[150] his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.[151]

On 5 April, again at the instigation of Robespierre, Danton, a moderate Montagnard, and 13 associated politicians, charged with counter-revolutionary activities,[152] were executed.[135] A week later again 19 politicians, this hushed the Convention deputies: if henceforth they disagreed with Robespierre they hardly dared to speak out.[135]

On 7 June 1794, Robespierre advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".[152] A law enacted on 10 June 1794 (22 Prairial II) further streamlined criminal procedures: if the Revolutionary Tribunal saw sufficient proof of someone being an "enemy of the people" a counsel for defence would not be allowed. The frequency of guillotine executions in Paris now rose from on average three a day to an average of 29 a day.[135]

Meanwhile, France's external wars were going well, with victories over Austrian and British troops in May and June 1794 opening up Belgium for French conquest.[135] But cooperation within the Committee of Public Prosperity, since April 1793 the de facto executive government, started to break down, on 29 June 1794, three colleagues of Robespierre at 'the Committee' called him a dictator in his face – Robespierre baffled left the meeting. This encouraged other Convention members to also defy Robespierre, on 26 July, a long and vague speech of Robespierre wasn't met with thunderous applause as usual but with hostility; some deputies yelled that Robespierre should have the courage to say which deputies he deemed necessary to be killed next, what Robespierre refused to do.[135]

In the Convention session of 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor of Year II), Robespierre and his allies hardly managed to say a word as they were constantly interrupted by a row of critics such as Tallien, Billaud-Varenne, Vadier, Barère and acting president Thuriot. Finally, even Robespierre's own voice failed on him: it faltered at his last attempt to beg permission to speak.[135]

The execution of Robespierre on 28 July 1794 marked the end of the Reign of Terror.

After July 1794, most civilians henceforth ignored the Republican calendar and returned to the traditional seven-day weeks, the government in a law of 21 February 1795 set steps of return to freedom of religion and reconciliation with the since 1790 refractoryCatholic priests, but any religious signs outside churches or private homes, such as crosses, clerical garb, bell ringing, remained prohibited. When the people's enthousiasm for attending church grew to unexpected levels the government backed out and in October 1795 again, like in 1790, required all priests to swear oaths on the Republic.[153]

In the very cold winter of 1794–95, with the French army demanding more and more bread, same was getting scarce in Paris as was wood to keep houses warm, and in an echo of the October 1789 March on Versailles, on 1 April 1795 (12 Germinal III) a mostly female crowd marched on the Convention calling for bread. But no Convention member sympathized, they just told the women to return home. Again in May a crowd of 20,000 men and 40,000 women invaded the Convention and even killed a deputy in the halls, but again they failed to make the Convention take notice of the needs of the lower classes. Instead, the Convention banned women from all political assemblies, and deputies who had solidarized with this insurrection were sentenced to death: such allegiance between parliament and street fighting was no longer tolerated.[153]

The first chamber was called the 'Council of 500' initiating the laws, the second the 'Council of Elders' reviewing and approving or not the passed laws, each year, one-third of the chambers was to be renewed. The executive power was in the hands of the five members of the five directors of the Directory with a five-year mandate.[153]

The early directors did not much understand the nation they were governing; they especially had an innate inability to see Catholicism as anything else than counter-revolutionary and royalist. Local administrators had a better sense of people's priorities, and one of them wrote to the minister of the interior: "Give back the crosses, the church bells, the Sundays, and everyone will cry: ’vive la République!’"[153]

The Directory denounced the arbitrary executions of the Reign of Terror, but itself engaged in large scale illegal repressions, as well as large-scale massacres of civilians in the Vendee uprising, the economy continued in bad condition, with the poor especially hurt by the high cost of food.

State finances were in total disarray; the government could only cover its expenses through the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.[162]

A small French force tried to invade Britain in February 1797. This contemporary image shows troops landing near Fishguard in Wales, the troops were later forced to surrender.

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination towards the émigrés themselves, the directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value until each note was worth less than the paper it was printed on; debtors easily paid off their debts.[163] A series of financial reforms started by the Directory finally took effect after it fell from power.[citation needed]

Evaluation

Although committed to Republicanism, the Directory distrusted democracy.[citation needed] Historians have seldom praised the Directory; it was a government of self-interest rather than virtue, thus losing any claim on idealism. It never had a strong base of popular support; when elections were held, most of its candidates were defeated. Its achievements were minor.[164][165] Brown stresses the turn towards dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy under the Directory, blaming it on, "chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression."[166]

The election system was complex and designed to insulate the government from grass roots democracy, the parliament consisted of two houses: the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred) with 500 representatives, and the Conseil des Anciens (Council of Elders) with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, the universal male suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property. The voters had only a limited choice because the electoral rules required two-thirds of the seats go to members of the old Convention, no matter how few popular votes they received.[167]

Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Nevertheless, those on the right who wished to restore the monarchy by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those on the left who would have renewed the Reign of Terror, tried but failed to overthrow the Directory, the earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible.[168] The Directory régime met opposition from Jacobins on the left and royalists on the right (the latter were secretly subsidised by the British government), the army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and in particular Napoleon gained total power.[citation needed]

Coups d'état

Parliamentary elections in the spring of 1797, for one-third of the seats in Parliament, resulted in considerable gains for the royalists,[153] who seemed poised to take control of the Directory in the next elections, this frightened the republican directors and they reacted, in the Coup of 18 Fructidor V (4 September 1797), by purging all the winners banishing 57 leaders to certain death in Guiana, removing two supposedly pro-royalist directors, and closing 42 newspapers.

The new, 'corrected' government, still strongly convinced that Catholicism and royalism were equally dangerous to the Republic, started a fresh campaign to promote the Republican calendar (officially introduced in 1792), with its ten-day week, and tried to hallow the tenth day, décadi, as substitute for the Christian Sunday. Not only citizens opposed and even mocked such decrees, also local government officials refused to enforce such laws.[153]

Exporting the Revolution

The Army at first was quite successful, it conquered Belgium and turned it into another province of France. It conquered the Netherlands and made it a puppet state, it conquered Switzerland and most of Italy, setting up a series of puppet states. The result was glory for France, and an infusion of much needed money from the conquered lands, which also provided direct support to the French Army. However, the enemies of France, led by Britain and funded by the inexhaustible British Treasury, formed a Second Coalition in 1799 (with Britain joined by Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria), it scored a series of victories that rolled back French successes, retaking Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands and ending the flow of payments from the conquered areas to France. The treasury was empty, despite his publicity claiming many glorious victories, Napoleon's army was trapped in Egypt after the British sank the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon escaped by himself, returned to Paris and overthrew the Directory in November, 1799.[170][171]

Napoleon conquered most of Italy in the name of the French Revolution in 1797–99, he consolidated old units and split up Austria's holdings. He set up a series of new republics, complete with new codes of law and abolition of old feudal privileges. Napoleon's Cisalpine Republic was centred on Milan. Genoa the city became a republic while its hinterland became the Ligurian Republic, the Roman Republic was formed out of the papal holdings and the pope was sent to France. The Neapolitan Republic was formed around Naples, but it lasted only five months before the enemy forces of the Coalition recaptured it; in 1805 he formed the Kingdom of Italy, with himself as king and his stepson as viceroy. In addition, France turned the Netherlands into the Batavian Republic, and Switzerland into the Helvetic Republic. All these new countries were satellites of France, and had to pay large subsidies to Paris, as well as provide military support for Napoleon's wars, their political and administrative systems were modernised, the metric system introduced, and trade barriers reduced. Jewish ghettos were abolished. Belgium and Piedmont became integral parts of France.[172]

Most of the new nations were abolished and returned to prewar owners in 1814. However, Artz emphasises the benefits the Italians gained from the French Revolution:

For nearly two decades the Italians had the excellent codes of law, a fair system of taxation, a better economic situation, and more religious and intellectual toleration than they had known for centuries... Everywhere old physical, economic, and intellectual barriers had been thrown down and the Italians had begun to be aware of a common nationality.[173]

Media and symbolism

Newspapers

A copy of L'Ami du peuple stained with the blood of Marat

In the Old regime there were a small number of heavily censored newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate. Newspapers and pamphlets played a central role in stimulating and defining the Revolution, the meetings of the Estates-General in 1789 created an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers appeared by the end of the year. Among the most significant of these newspapers in 1789 were Marat's L'Ami du peuple and Elysée Loustallot'sRevolutions de Paris, the next decade saw 2000 newspapers founded, with 500 in Paris alone. Most lasted only a matter of weeks. Together they became the main communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet literature.[174] Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to hand, the press saw its lofty role to be the advancement of civic republicanism based on public service, and downplayed the liberal, individualistic goal of making a profit.[175][176][177][178] By 1793 the radicals were most active but at the start the royalists flooded the country with their press the "Ami du Roi" (Friends of the King) until they were suppressed.[179] Napoleon only allowed four newspapers, all under tight control.

Symbolism

Symbolism was a device to distinguish the main features of the Revolution and ensure public identification and support; in order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics, these revised symbols were used to instil in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.[180]

The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style, the anthem's evocative melody and lyrics have led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and its incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music. Cerulo says, "the design of "La Marseillaise" is credited to General Strasburg of France, who is said to have directed de Lisle, the composer of the anthem, to 'produce one of those hymns which conveys to the soul of the people the enthusiasm which it (the music) suggests.'"[181]

English cartoon attacking the excesses of the Revolution as symbolised by the guillotine; between 18,000 and 40,000 people were executed during the Reign of Terror

Guillotine

Hanson notes, "The guillotine stands as the principal symbol of the Terror in the French Revolution."[182] Invented by a physician during the Revolution as a quicker, more efficient and more distinctive form of execution, the guillotine became a part of popular culture and historic memory, it was celebrated on the left as the people's avenger and cursed as the symbol of the Reign of Terror by the right.[183] Its operation became a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors sold programmes listing the names of those scheduled to die. Many people came day after day and vied for the best locations from which to observe the proceedings; knitting women (tricoteuses) formed a cadre of hardcore regulars, inciting the crowd. Parents often brought their children. By the end of the Terror, the crowds had thinned drastically. Repetition had staled even this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.[184]

What it is that horrifies people changes over time. Doyle comments:

Even the unique horror of the guillotine has been dwarfed by the gas chambers of the Holocaust, the organized brutality of the gulag, the mass intimidation of Mao's cultural revolution, or the killing fields of Cambodia.[185]

Tricolore cockade

Cockades were widely worn by revolutionaries beginning in 1789, they now pinned the blue-and-red cockade of Paris onto the white cockade of the Ancien Régime – thus producing the original Tricolore cockade. Later, distinctive colours and styles of cockade would indicate the wearer's faction—although the meanings of the various styles were not entirely consistent, and varied somewhat by region and period.

The tricolour cockade, created in July 1789. White was added to "nationalise" an earlier blue and red design.

The tricolour flag is derived from the cockades used in the 1790s, these were circular rosette-like emblems attached to the hat. Camille Desmoulins asked his followers to wear green cockades on 12 July 1789. The Paris militia, formed on 13 July, adopted a blue and red cockade. Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, and they are used on the city's coat of arms. Cockades with various colour schemes were used during the storming of the Bastille on 14 July,[186] the blue and red cockade was presented to King Louis XVI at the Hôtel de Ville on 17 July. Lafayette argued for the addition of a white stripe to "nationalise" the design,[187] on 27 July, a tricolour cockade was adopted as part of the uniform of the National Guard, the national police force that succeeded the militia.[188]

Fasces

Fasces are Roman in origin and suggest Roman Republicanism. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe, the French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity.[180]

Liberty cap

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward, it reflects Roman republicanism and liberty, alluding to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty.[190]

Role of women

Historians since the late 20th century have debated how women shared in the French Revolution and what long-term impact it had on French women. Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them. That changed dramatically in theory as there seemingly were great advances in feminism. Feminism emerged in Paris as part of a broad demand for social and political reform, the women demanded equality for men and then moved on to a demand for the end of male domination. Their chief vehicle for agitation were pamphlets and women's clubs, but the clubs were abolished in October 1793 and their leaders were arrested, the movement was crushed. Devance explains the decision in terms of the emphasis on masculinity in a wartime situation, Marie Antoinette's bad reputation for feminine interference in state affairs, and traditional male supremacy.[191] A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and perpetuated women's second-class status.[192]

When the Revolution opened, groups of women acted forcefully, making use of the volatile political climate. Women forced their way into the political sphere, they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." De Corday d'Armont is a prime example of such a woman; engaged in the revolutionary political faction of the Girondins, she assassinated the Jacobin leader, Marat. Throughout the Revolution, other women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women supported the radical Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the National Assembly and participated in the riots, often using armed force.[193]

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,[194] activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women.[195] Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of 'active citizenship' (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."[194]

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuileries Gardens, and then through the King's residence."[196] Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793, as part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered (by a counter-revolutionary woman) as well as a shirt stained with Marat's blood.[197] On 20 May 1793 women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793." When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."[198]

The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, a militant group on the far left, demanded a law in 1793 that would compel all women to wear the tricolour cockade to demonstrate their loyalty to the Republic, they also demanded vigorous price controls to keep bread – the major food of the poor people – from becoming too expensive. After the Convention passage law in September 1793, the Revolutionary Republican Women demanded vigorous enforcement, but were counted by market women, former servants, and religious women who adamantly opposed price controls (which would drive them out of business ) and resented attacks on the aristocracy and on religion. Fist fights broke out in the streets between the two factions of women.

Meanwhile, the men who controlled the Jacobins rejected the Revolutionary Republican Women as dangerous rabble-rousers, at this point the Jacobins controlled the government; they dissolved the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, and decreed that all women's clubs and associations were illegal. They sternly reminded women to stay home and tend to their families by leaving public affairs to the men. Organised women were permanently shut out of the French Revolution after October 30, 1793.[199]

Prominent women

Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasised that women and men are different, but this shouldn't stop them from equality under the law; in her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children.[200]

Madame Roland (a.k.a. Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist, her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world, her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"[201]

Most of these activists were punished for their actions. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".[202]

Counter-revolutionary women

A major aspect of the French Revolution was the dechristianisation movement, a movement strongly rejected by many devout people. Especially for women living in rural areas of France, the closing of the churches meant a loss of normalcy.[203]

When these revolutionary changes to the Church were implemented, it sparked a counter-revolutionary movement among women, although some of these women embraced the political and social amendments of the Revolution, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and the formation of revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being.[204] As Olwen Hufton argues, these women began to see themselves as the "defenders of faith",[205] they took it upon themselves to protect the Church from what they saw as a heretical change to their faith, enforced by revolutionaries.

Counter-revolutionary women resisted what they saw as the intrusion of the state into their lives.[206] Economically, many peasant women refused to sell their goods for assignats because this form of currency was unstable and was backed by the sale of confiscated Church property. By far the most important issue to counter-revolutionary women was the passage and the enforcement of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790. In response to this measure, women in many areas began circulating anti-oath pamphlets and refused to attend masses held by priests who had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Republic, these women continued to adhere to traditional practices such as Christian burials and naming their children after saints in spite of revolutionary decrees to the contrary.[207]

Economic policies

The French Revolution abolished many of the constraints on the economy that had slowed growth during the ancien regime, it abolished tithes owed to local churches as well as feudal dues owed to local landlords. The result hurt the tenants, who paid both higher rents and higher taxes,[208] it nationalised all church lands, as well as lands belonging to royalist enemies who went into exile. It planned to use these seized lands to finance the government by issuing assignats, it abolished the guild system as a worthless remnant of feudalism.[209] It also abolished the highly inefficient system of tax farming, whereby private individuals would collect taxes for a hefty fee, the government seized the foundations that had been set up (starting in the 13th century) to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.[210]

The economy did poorly in 1790–96 as industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and prices soared, the government decided not to repudiate the old debts. Instead it issued more and more paper money (called "assignat") that supposedly were grounded seized lands, the result was escalating inflation. The government imposed price controls and persecuted speculators and traders in the black market. People increasingly refused to pay taxes as the annual government deficit increased from 10% of gross national product in 1789 to 64% in 1793. By 1795, after the bad harvest of 1794 and the removal of price controls, inflation had reached a level of 3500%, the assignats were withdrawn in 1796 but the replacements also fuelled inflation. The inflation was finally ended by Napoleon in 1803 with the franc as the new currency.[211]

Napoleon after 1799 paid for his expensive wars by multiple means, starting with the modernisation of the rickety financial system,[212] he conscripted soldiers at low wages, raised taxes, placed large-scale loans, sold lands formerly owned by the Catholic Church, sold Louisiana to the United States, plundered conquered areas and seized food supplies, and levied requisitions on countries he controlled, such as Italy.[213]

Long-term impact

The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World,[214][215] it changed the course of human history, bringing an end to feudalism and making a path for future advances in broadly defined freedom of an individual.[2][3][4]

Otto Dann and John Dinwiddy report, "It has long been almost a truism of European history that the French Revolution gave a great stimulus to the growth of modern nationalism."[216] Nationalism was emphasised by historian Carlton J. H. Hayes as a major result of the French Revolution across Europe. The impact on French nationalism was profound, for example, Napoleon became such a heroic symbol of the nation that the glory was easily picked up by his nephew, who was overwhelmingly elected president (and later became Emperor Napoleon III).[217] The influence was great in the hundreds of small German states and elsewhere, where it was either inspired by the French example or in reaction against it.[218][219]

France

The changes in France were enormous; some were widely accepted and others were bitterly contested into the late 20th century.[220] Before the Revolution, the people had little power or voice, the kings had so thoroughly centralised the system that most nobles spent their time at Versailles, and thus played only a small direct role in their home districts. Thompson says that the kings had:

ruled by virtue of their personal wealth, their patronage of the nobility, their disposal of ecclesiastical offices, their provincial governors (intendants) their control over the judges and magistrates, and their command of the Army.[221]

After the first year of revolution, this power had been stripped away, the king was a figurehead, the nobility had lost all their titles and most of their land, the Church lost its monasteries and farmlands, bishops, judges and magistrates were elected by the people, the army was almost helpless, with military power in the hands of the new revolutionary National Guard. The central elements of 1789 were the slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity' and "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen", which Lefebvre calls "the incarnation of the Revolution as a whole."[222]

The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard writes:

From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life.... The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity."[223]

Religion and charity

The most heated controversy was over the status of the Catholic Church,[224] from a dominant position in 1788, it was almost destroyed in less than a decade, its priests and nuns turned out, its leaders dead or in exile, its property controlled by its enemies, and a strong effort underway to remove all influence of Christian religiosity, such as Sundays, holy days, saints, prayers, rituals and ceremonies. The movement to dechristianise France not only failed but aroused a furious reaction among the pious.[225][226] Napoleon's Concordat was a compromise that restored some of the Catholic Church's traditional roles but not its power, its lands or its monasteries. Priests and bishops were given salaries as part of a department of government controlled by Paris, not Rome. Protestants and Jews gained equal rights.[227] Battles over the role of religion in the public sphere, and closely related issues such as church-controlled schools, that were opened by the Revolution have never seen closure, they raged into the 20th century. By the 21st century, angry debates exploded over the presence of any Muslim religious symbols in schools, such as the headscarves for which Muslim girls could be expelled. J. Christopher Soper and Joel S. Fetzer explicitly link the conflict over religious symbols in public to the French Revolution, when the target was Catholic rituals and symbols.[228]

The revolutionary government seized the charitable foundations that had been set up (starting in the 13th century) to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education, the state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.[210]

In the ancien regime, new opportunities for nuns as charitable practitioners were created by devout nobles on their own estates, the nuns provided comprehensive care for the sick poor on their patrons' estates, not only acting as nurses, but taking on expanded roles as physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries. During the Revolution, most of the orders of nuns were shut down and there was no organised nursing care to replace them.[229] However, the demand for their nursing services remained strong, and after 1800 the sisters reappeared and resumed their work in hospitals and on rural estates, they were tolerated by officials because they had widespread support and were the link between elite male physicians and distrustful peasants who needed help.[230]

Economics

Two thirds of France was employed in agriculture, which was transformed by the Revolution, with the breakup of large estates controlled by the Church and the nobility and worked by hired hands, rural France became more a land of small independent farms. Harvest taxes were ended, such as the tithe and seigneurial dues, much to the relief of the peasants. Primogeniture was ended both for nobles and peasants, thereby weakening the family patriarch, because all the children had a share in the family's property, there was a declining birth rate.[231][232] Cobban says the revolution bequeathed to the nation "a ruling class of landowners."[233]

In the cities, entrepreneurship on a small scale flourished, as restrictive monopolies, privileges, barriers, rules, taxes and guilds gave way. However, the British blockade virtually ended overseas and colonial trade, hurting the port cities and their supply chains. Overall, the Revolution did not greatly change the French business system, and probably helped freeze in place the horizons of the small business owner, the typical businessman owned a small store, mill or shop, with family help and a few paid employees; large-scale industry was less common than in other industrialising nations.[234]

Constitutionalism

The Revolution meant an end to arbitrary royal rule, and held out the promise of rule by law under a constitutional order, but it did not rule out a monarch. Napoleon as emperor set up a constitutional system (although he remained in full control), and the restored Bourbons were forced to go along with one, after the abdication of Napoleon III in 1871, the monarchists probably had a voting majority, but they were so factionalised they could not agree on who should be king, and instead the French Third Republic was launched with a deep commitment to upholding the ideals of the Revolution.[235][236] The conservative Catholic enemies of the Revolution came to power in Vichy France (1940–44), and tried with little success to undo its heritage, but they kept it a republic. Vichy denied the principle of equality and tried to replace the Revolutionary watchwords "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" with "Work, Family, and Fatherland." However, there were no efforts by the Bourbons, Vichy or anyone else to restore the privileges that had been stripped away from the nobility in 1789. France permanently became a society of equals under the law.[237]

Outside France

Britain

On July 16, 1789, two days after the Storming of the Bastille, John Frederick Sackville, serving as ambassador to France, reported to Secretary of State for Foreign AffairsFrancis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds, "Thus, my Lord, the greatest revolution that we know anything of has been effected with, comparatively speaking—if the magnitude of the event is considered—the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation.[239]" Yet Britain saw minority support while the majority, and especially the elite, strongly opposed the French Revolution. Britain led and funded the series of coalitions that fought France from 1793 to 1815, and then restored the Bourbons. Edmund Burke was the chief spokesman for the opposition.[240][241]

In Ireland, the effect was to transform what had been an attempt by Protestant settlers to gain some autonomy into a mass movement led by the Society of United Irishmen involving Catholics and Protestants, it stimulated the demand for further reform throughout Ireland, especially in Ulster. The upshot was a revolt in 1798, led by Wolfe Tone, that was crushed by Britain.[242]

Germany

German reaction to the Revolution swung from favourable to antagonistic, at first it brought liberal and democratic ideas, the end of gilds, serfdom and the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian and legal reform. Above all the antagonism helped stimulate and shape German nationalism.[243]

Switzerland

The French invaded Switzerland and turned it into an ally known as the "Helvetic Republic" (1798–1803), the interference with localism and traditional liberties was deeply resented, although some modernising reforms took place.[244][245]

During the Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded and occupied the region between 1794 and 1814, a time known as the French period, the new government enforced new reforms, incorporating the region into France itself. New rulers were sent in by Paris. Belgian men were drafted into the French wars and heavily taxed. Nearly everyone was Catholic, but the Church was repressed. Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged to oppose French rule, the French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and abolition of class distinctions. Belgium now had a government bureaucracy selected by merit.[246]

Antwerp regained access to the sea and grew quickly as a major port and business centre. France promoted commerce and capitalism, paving the way for the ascent of the bourgeoisie and the rapid growth of manufacturing and mining; in economics, therefore, the nobility declined while the middle class Belgian entrepreneurs flourished because of their inclusion in a large market, paving the way for Belgium's leadership role after 1815 in the Industrial Revolution on the Continent.[247][248]

Scandinavia

The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution, with no direct contact. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century.[249]

United States

The Revolution deeply polarised American politics, and this polarisation led to the creation of the First Party System; in 1793, as war broke out in Europe, the Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson favoured France and pointed to the 1778 treaty that was still in effect. George Washington and his unanimous cabinet, including Jefferson, decided that the treaty did not bind the United States to enter the war. Washington proclaimed neutrality instead.[250] Under President John Adams, a Federalist, an undeclared naval war took place with France from 1798 until 1799, often called the "Quasi War". Jefferson became president in 1801, but was hostile to Napoleon as a dictator and emperor. However, the two entered negotiations over the Louisiana Territory and agreed to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, an acquisition that substantially increased the size of the United States.

Historiography

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics, the views of historians, in particular, have been characterised as falling along ideological lines, with disagreement over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution.[251]Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance.[252]

Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints.[253] Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasised the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle;[254] in general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyses the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.[255]

Historians until the late 20th century emphasised class conflicts from a largely Marxist perspective as the fundamental driving cause of the Revolution,[256] the central theme of this argument was that the Revolution emerged from the rising bourgeoisie, with support from the sans-culottes, who fought to destroy the aristocracy.[257] However, Western scholars largely abandoned Marxist interpretations in the 1990s. By the year 2000 many historians were saying that the field of the French Revolution was in intellectual disarray, the old model or paradigm focusing on class conflict has been discredited, and no new explanatory model had gained widespread support.[258][259] Nevertheless, as Spang has shown, there persists a very widespread agreement to the effect that the French Revolution was the watershed between the premodern and modern eras of Western history.[260]

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in history, it marks the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500 and is often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era".[261] Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained, after the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterised the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organisations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option."[262]

Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution,[263] the Revolution represented the most significant and dramatic challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world.[264] Throughout the 19th Century, the revolution was heavily analysed by economists and political scientists, who saw the class nature of the revolution as a fundamental aspect in understanding human social evolution itself. This, combined with the egalitarian values introduced by the revolution, gave rise to a classless and co-operative model for society called "socialism" which profoundly influenced future revolutions in France and around the world.

Political clubs during the French Revolution

Notes

^Livesey, James. Making Democracy in the French Revolution p. 19 The Revolution created and elaborated...the ideal of democracy, which forms the creative tension with the notion of sovereignty that informs the functioning of modern democratic liberal states. This was the truly original contribution of the Revolution to modern political culture.

^ abNoah Shusterman – The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics. Routledge, London and New York, 2014. Chapter 5 (p. 119–142): The end of the monarchy and the September Massacres (summer–fall 1792)

^ abcdefghijklmnNoah Shusterman – The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics. Routledge, London and New York, 2014. Chapter 7 (p. 175–203): The federalist revolt, the Vendée, and the start of the Terror (summer–fall 1793).

^Jeremy D. Popkin, "The Press and the French revolution after two hundred years." French Historical Studies (1990): 664–83 in JSTOR.

^Harvey Chisick, "Pamphlets and Journalism in the Early French Revolution: The Offices of the Ami du Roi of the Abbé Royou as a Center of Royalist Propaganda," French Historical Studies (1988) 15#4 623–45 in JSTOR

^Tim McHugh, "Expanding Women's Rural Medical Work in Early Modern Brittany: The Daughters of the Holy Spirit," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (2012) 67#3 pp. 428–56. online in project MUSE

Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and text search

Gershoy, Leo. The French Revolution and Napoleon (1945) 585pp

Gershoy, Leo. The Era of the French Revolution, 1789–1799 (1957), brief summary with some primary sources

Gottschalk, Louis R. The Era of the French Revolution (1929), cover 1780s to 1815

Tackett, Timothy, "The French Revolution and religion to 1794," and Suzanne Desan, "The French Revolution and religion, 1795–1815," in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett, eds. The Cambridge History of Christianity vol. 7 (Cambridge UP, 2006).

Women

Dalton, Susan. "Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of Madame Roland." Canadian journal of history (2001) 36#2

Godineau, Dominique. The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution (1998) 440pp 1998

Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; strong on history of ideas and historiography (esp pp. 881–1034 excerpt and text search

Furet, François. Interpreting the French revolution (1981).

Germani, Ian, and Robin Swayles. Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution. University of Regina Publications. 1998. ISBN978-0-88977-108-6

Geyl, Pieter. Napoleon for and Against (1949), 477pp; summarizes views of major historians on controversial issues

Jean-Baptiste Lingaud papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. Includes a vast number of name lists and secret surveillance records as well as arrest warrants for aristocrats and their sympathisers. Most notable in this part of the collection are letters and documents from the Revolutionary Committee and the Surveillance Committee.

French Revolution Pamphlets, Division of Special Collections, University of Alabama Libraries. Over 300 digitised pamphlets, from writers including Robespierre, St. Juste, Desmoulins, and Danton.

Storming of the Bastille
–
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy, in France, Le

4.
Engraving, c.1789: French soldiers or militia hoisting the heads of Flesselles and the marquis de Launay on pikes. The caption reads "Thus we take revenge on traitors".

France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territ

1.
One of the Lascaux paintings: a horse – Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC

List of French monarchs
–
The monarchs of the Kingdom of France and its predecessors ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of the Franks in 486 till the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870. Sometimes included as kings of France are the kings of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled from 486 until 751, and of the Carolingians, who ruled until 987. The

Liberalism
–
Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberalism first became a political movement during the Age of Enlightenment. Liberalism rejected the social and political norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy. The 17th-century philosopher John Locke is often credited with foundi

Age of Enlightenment
–
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year

Napoleon
–
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France agai

French Revolutionary Wars
–
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts, lasting from 1792 until 1802, resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted the French First Republic against Britain, Austria and several other monarchies and they are divided in two periods, the War of the First Coalition and the War of the Second Coalition. Initially

History of France
–
The first written records for the history of France appear in the Iron Age. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language, over the course of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. Afterwa

Prehistory of France
–
Stone tools indicate that early humans were present in France at least 1.57 million years ago. Stone tools discovered at Lézignan-la-Cèbe in 2009 indicate that humans were present in France at least 1.57 million years ago. France includes Olduwan and Acheulean sites from early or non-modern Hominini species, most notably Homo erectus, tooth Arago 1

Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
–
Following the founding of the major trading post of Massalia in 600 BC by the Phocaeans at present day Marseille, Massalians had a complex history of interaction with peoples of the region. The oldest city within modern France, Marseille, was founded around 600 BC by Greeks from the Asia Minor city of Phocaea as a trading post or emporion under the

1.
Location of the Greek colony of Marseille.

2.
Remains of the Greek harbour in the Jardin des Vestiges in central Marseille, the most extensive Greek settlement in pre-Roman Gaul

3.
In legend, Gyptis, daughter of the king of the Segobriges, chose the Greek Protis, who then received a site for founding Massalia.

4.
The Vix krater, an imported Greek wine-mixing vessel from 500 BC attests to the trade exchanges of the period

Gaul
–
It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts, Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Te

4.
Soldiers of Gaul, as imagined by a late 19th-century illustrator for the Larousse dictionary, 1898

Roman Gaul
–
Roman Gaul refers to Gaul under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. The Roman Republic began its takeover of Celtic Gaul in 121 BC, julius Caesar significantly advanced the task by defeating the Celtic tribes in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC. In 22 BC, imperial administration of Gaul was reorganized, est

Francia
–
The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint D

1.
The partition of the Frankish kingdom among the four sons of Clovis with Clotilde presiding, Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis (Bibliothèque municipale de Toulouse).

4.
The division of Francia on Clovis 's death (511). The kingdoms were not geographic unities because they were formed in an attempt to create equal-sized fiscs. The discrepancy in size reveals the concentration of Roman fiscal lands.

Franks
–
Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Roma

4.
A 6th-7th century necklace of glass and ceramic beads with a central amethyst bead. Similar necklaces have been found in the graves of Frankish women in the Rhineland.

Merovingian dynasty
–
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that ruled the Franks for nearly 300 years in a region known as Francia in Latin, beginning in the middle of the 5th century. Their territory largely corresponded to ancient Gaul as well as the Roman provinces of Raetia, Germania Superior and the southern part of Germania. The Merovingian dynasty was

Carolingian dynasty
–
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name Carolingian derives from the Latinised name of Charles Martel, the Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of Romans in over three centuries. His death in 814

1.
A Carolingian family tree, from the Chronicon Universale of Ekkehard of Aura, 12th century

France in the Middle Ages
–
From the 13th century on, the state slowly regained control of a number of these lost powers. The crises of the 13th and 14th centuries led to the convening of an assembly, the Estates General. From the Middle Ages onward, French rulers believed their kingdoms had natural borders, the Pyrenees, the Alps and this was used as a pretext for an aggress

4.
Philip II victorious at Bouvines thus annexing Normandy and Anjou into his royal domains. This battle involved a complex set of alliances from three important states, the Kingdoms of France and England and the Holy Roman Empire.

House of Capet
–
The House of Capet or the Direct Capetians, also called the House of France, or simply the Capets, ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians, historians in the 19th century came to apply the name Capetian to both the ruling house of France and

1.
Arms of the King of France

House of Valois
–
The House of Valois was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. They succeeded the House of Capet to the French throne, and were the house of France from 1328 to 1589. Junior members of the family founded cadet branches in Orléans, Anjou, Burgundy, the Valois descended from Charles, Count of Valois, the second surviving son of King Philip III of Fr

1.
Arms of the King of France since 1376

Early modern France
–
The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Revolution, was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon. This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime, the territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the firs

House of Bourbon
–
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century, by the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs, the royal Bourbons origi

France in the long nineteenth century
–
The 19th century would complete the process by the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the city of Nice and some small papal and foreign possessions. Savoy and the Nice were definitively annexed following Frances victory in the Franco-Austrian War in 1859, in 1830, France invaded Algeria, and in 1848 this north African country was fully integrated

French First Republic
–
In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged

First French Empire
–
The First French Empire, Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Its name was a misnomer, as France already had colonies overseas and was short lived compared to the Colonial Empire, a series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, e

Bourbon Restoration
–
The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history following the fall of Napoleon in 1814 until the July Revolution of 1830. The brothers of executed Louis XVI of France reigned in highly conservative fashion, and they were nonetheless unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna

4.
Popular colored etching, verging on caricature, published by Décrouant, early 19th century: La famille royale et les alliées s'occupant du bonheur de l'Europe (The Royal Family and the Allies concerned with the Happiness of Europe)

July Monarchy
–
The July Monarchy, was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under Louis Philippe I, starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. It began with the overthrow of the government of Charles X. The king promised to follow the juste milieu, or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of the supporters of C

1.
Louis-Philippe I, King of the French. The King is depicted at the entrance of the Gallerie des batailles which he had furnished in the Château de Versailles.

French Second Republic
–
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, the Second Republic witnessed the tension between the Social and Democratic Republic and a liberal form of Repub

Second French Empire
–
The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government.

French Third Republic
–
It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarc

1.
A French propaganda poster from 1917 is captioned with an 18th century quote: "Even in 1788, Mirabeau was saying that War is the National Industry of Prussia."

4.
In France, children were taught in school not to forget the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, which were coloured in black on maps.

France in the twentieth century
–
Alsace-Lorraine would be restored at the end of World War I. Unlike other European countries France did not experience a population growth in the mid and late 19th century. From a population of around 39 million in 1880, France still had only a population of 40 million in 1945, the post-war years would bring a massive baby boom, and with immigratio

Free France
–
It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa and it was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in

4.
In Occupied France during the war, reproductions of the 18 June appeal were distributed through underground means as pamphlets and plastered on walls as posters by supporters of the Résistance. This could be a dangerous activity.

Vichy France
–
Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. In particular, it represents the southern, unoccupied Free Zone that governed the southern part of the country, from 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of France as a whole, Germany militarily occupied northern Fra

4.
French colonial prisoner in German captivity, 1940. Black troops were treated worse than their white compatriots, and some of them were used for German anthropological and medical experiments.

Provisional Government of the French Republic
–
Its establishment marked the official restoration and re-establishment of a provisional French Republic assuring continuity with the defunct French Third Republic. As the wartime government of France in 1944-1945, its purposes were to handle the aftermath of the occupation of France. Its principal mission beside the war was to prepare the ground fo

French Fourth Republic
–
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II. France adopted the constitution of the Fourth Republic on 13 October 1946, the greatest accomplishments of the Fourth Republ

French Fifth Republic
–
The Fifth Republic, Frances current republican system of government, was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. De Gaulle, who was the first president elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a head of state. The Fifth Republic is Frances third-longest political regime,

Timeline of French history
–
This is a timeline of French history, comprising important legal and changes and political events in France and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of France, see also the list of Frankish kings, French monarchs, and presidents of the French Republic and list of years in France. Category, Timelines of c

1.
18th century

Revolution
–
Aristotle described two types of political revolution, Complete change from one constitution to another Modification of an existing constitution. Revolutions have occurred through history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions, scholarly debates about

Colour revolution
–
The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East. Some observers have called the events a revolutionary wave, the origins of which can be traced back to the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, participants in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance, also called civi

1.
Colour revolutions map

Nonviolent revolution
–
Nonviolent revolutions in the 20th century became more successful and more common, especially in the 1980s as Cold War political alliances which supported status quo governance waned. The use of forms of unofficial exchange of information, including by samizdat. Two major revolutions during the 1980s strongly influenced political movements that fol

Permanent revolution
–
Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical, Trotsky put forward his conception of permanent revolution as an explanation of how socialist

Boycott
–
The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior. Sometimes, a boycott can be a form of consumer activism, when a similar practice is legislated by a national government, it is known as a sanction. As harvests had been poor that ye

Civil disobedience
–
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law, Civil disobedience is sometimes, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. One of its earliest massive impleme

3.
A police officer speaks with a demonstrator at a union picket, explaining that she will be arrested if she does not leave the street. The demonstrator was arrested moments later.

Civil war
–
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed f

Class conflict
–
The view that the class struggle provides the lever for radical social change for the majority is central to the work of Karl Marx and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. In the past the term Class conflict was a term used mostly by socialists, from this point of view, the social control of production and labor is a contest between classes, and the divi

Demonstration (protest)
–
Actions such as blockades and sit-ins may also be referred to as demonstrations. Demonstrations can be nonviolent or violent, or can begin as nonviolent, sometimes riot police or other forms of law enforcement become involved. In some cases this may be in order to try to prevent the protest from taking place at all, in other cases it may be to prev

Guerrilla warfare
–
The term, the diminutive form of war in Spanish, is usually translated as little war, and the word, guerrilla, has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero if male, the term guerrilla was used in English as early as 1809, to refe

Insurgency
–
An insurgency is a rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. The nature of insurgencies is an ambiguous concept, where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be viewed as an insurgency if a state of belligerency exists between one or more sovereign states and rebel forces

Nonviolent resistance
–
This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group. It is largely but wrongly taken as synonymous with civil resistance, each of these terms has its distinct merits and also quite different connotations and commitments. The

Protest
–
A protest is an expression of bearing witness on behalf of an express cause by words or actions with regard to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Various forms of self-expression and protest are sometimes restricted by policy, economic circumstances, relig

3.
A working class political protest in Greece calling for the boycott of a bookshop after an employee was fired, allegedly for her political activism

4.
Anti-nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo. Sixty thousand people marched chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

1.
Illustration from a 1916 advertisement for a vocational school in the back of a US magazine. Education has been seen as a key to higher income, and this advertisement appealed to Americans' belief in the possibility of self-betterment, as well as threatening the consequences of downward mobility in the great income inequality existing during the Industrial Revolution.

2.
Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with absolute inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero income).

4.
Income inequality and mortality in 282 metropolitan areas of the United States. Mortality is strongly associated with higher income inequality, but, within levels of income inequality, not with per capita income.

4.
Benito Mussolini in 1917, as a soldier in World War I. In 1914, Mussolini founded the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria that he led. Mussolini promoted the Italian intervention in the war as a revolutionary nationalist action to liberate Italian-claimed lands from Austria-Hungary.

1.
In 1570 (May 20) Gilles Coppens de Diest at Antwerp published 53 maps created by Abraham Ortelius under the title Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, considered the "first modern atlas". Latin editions, besides Dutch, French and German editions appeared before the end of 1572; the atlas continued to be in demand till about 1612. This is the world map from this atlas.

1.
Clockwise from top left: Surviving Spanish troops on Barcelona after the Siege of Baler, Captured of a Filipino Revolutionary Leader by Spanish Troops, Filipino Soliers at the Siege of Baler, Monument recapturing the Battle of Imus, Filipino negotiators for the Pact of Biak-na-Bato, Filipino soldier during the near end of the Revolution.

Persian Constitutional Revolution

1.
The royal proclamation of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah that agree the Constitutional monarchy on August 5, 1906.

2.
Persian Constitutional Revolution revolutionary fighters of Tabriz. The two men in the center are Sattar Khan and Bagher Khan

3.
Members of the First Majlis (October 7, 1906 — June 23, 1908). The central photograph is that of Mortezā Qoli Khan Sani od-Dauleh, the first Chairman of the First Majlis. He had been the Finance Minister for seven months when he was assassinated on 6 February 1911 by two Georgian nationals in Tehran.

3.
Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos's route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958.

3.
Grégoire Kayibanda, a leading figure of the Hutu movement, depicted on a coin commemorating Rwandan independence in 1961

4.
A royalist pin badge with the slogan "Vive Kigeli V" ("Long live Kigeli V") dating to the period of the Rwandan Revolution

Cultural Revolution

1.
Cultural Revolution propaganda poster. It depicts Mao Zedong, above a group of soldiers from the People's Liberation Army. The caption says, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought."

2.
The purge of General Luo Ruiqing solidified the Army's loyalty to Mao

3.
Red Guards on the cover of an elementary school textbook from Guangxi

1.
Outside the presidential palace gate (Arg) in Kabul, the day after the Saur revolution on 28 April 1978

2.
The day after the Saur revolution in Kabul.

LIST OF IMAGES

1.
Storming of the Bastille
–
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy, in France, Le quatorze juillet is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced an economic crisis, partially initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July. The commoners had formed the National Guard, sporting tricolour cockades of blue, white and red, formed by combining the red and blue cockade of Paris and the white cockade of the king. These cockades, and soon simply their colour scheme, became the symbol of the revolution and, later, Paris, close to insurrection and, in François Mignets words, intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm, showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assemblys debates, political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares, the Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting. The Assembly recommended the imprisoned guardsmen to the clemency of the king, they returned to prison, the rank and file of the regiment, previously considered reliable, now leaned toward the popular cause. News of Neckers dismissal reached Paris in the afternoon of Sunday,12 July, the Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements. Crowds gathered throughout Paris, including more than ten thousand at the Palais-Royal and this very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all, one resource is left, to take arms. By early July, approximately half of the 25,000 regular troops in Paris, the crowd clashed with the Royal German Cavalry Regiment between the Place Vendôme and the Tuileries Palace. From atop the Champs-Élysées, the Prince de Lambesc unleashed a cavalry charge that dispersed the protesters at Place Louis XV—now Place de la Concorde. The Royal commander, Baron de Besenval, fearing the results of a blood bath amongst the poorly armed crowds or defections among his own men, then withdrew the cavalry towards Sèvres. Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who expressed their hostility against state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food, the people of Paris started to plunder any place where food, guns and supplies could be hoarded. That night, rumors spread that supplies were being hoarded at Saint-Lazare, a property of the clergy. An angry mob broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat and that same day multitudes of people plundered many other places including weapon arsenals. The Royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of chaos in Paris during those days

Storming of the Bastille
–
Prise de la Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël
Storming of the Bastille
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Jacques Necker (1732–1804), French minister of finance
Storming of the Bastille
–
The Bastille of Paris before the Revolution.
Storming of the Bastille
–
Engraving, c.1789: French soldiers or militia hoisting the heads of Flesselles and the marquis de Launay on pikes. The caption reads "Thus we take revenge on traitors".

2.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks

3.
List of French monarchs
–
The monarchs of the Kingdom of France and its predecessors ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of the Franks in 486 till the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870. Sometimes included as kings of France are the kings of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled from 486 until 751, and of the Carolingians, who ruled until 987. The Capetian dynasty, the descendants of Hugh Capet, included the first rulers to adopt the title of king of France for the first time with Philip II. The Capetians ruled continuously from 987 to 1792 and again from 1814 to 1848, the branches of the dynasty which ruled after 1328, however, are generally given the specific branch names of Valois and Bourbon. During the brief period when the French Constitution of 1791 was in effect and after the July Revolution in 1830 and it was a constitutional innovation known as popular monarchy which linked the monarchs title to the French people rather than to the possession of the territory of France. With the House of Bonaparte Emperors of the French ruled in 19th century France and it was used on coins up to the eighteenth century. During the brief period when the French Constitution of 1791 was in effect and after the July Revolution in 1830 and it was a constitutional innovation known as popular monarchy which linked the monarchs title to the French people rather than to the possession of the territory of France. They used the title Emperor of the French and this article lists all rulers to have held the title King of the Franks, King of France, King of the French or Emperor of the French. For other Frankish monarchs, see List of Frankish kings, in addition to the monarchs listed below, the Kings of England and Great Britain from 1340–60, 1369-1420, and 1422–1801 also claimed the title of King of France. For a short time, this had some basis in fact – under the terms of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, Charles VI had recognized his son-in-law Henry V of England as regent and heir. Henry V predeceased Charles VI and so Henry Vs son, Henry VI, most of Northern France was under English control until 1435, but by 1453, the English had been expelled from all of France save Calais, and Calais itself fell in 1558. Nevertheless, English and then British monarchs continued to claim the title for themselves until the creation of the United Kingdom in 1801. The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that ruled the Franks for nearly 300 years in a known as Francia in Latin. Their territory largely corresponded to ancient Gaul as well as the Roman provinces of Raetia, Germania Superior, the Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. In 751, a Carolingian, Pepin the Younger, dethroned the Merovingians and with the consent of the Papacy, the Robertians were Frankish noblemen owing fealty to the Carolingians, and ancestors of the subsequent Capetian dynasty. Odo, Count of Paris, was chosen by the western Franks to be their king following the removal of emperor Charles the Fat, the Bosonids were a noble family descended from Boso the Elder, their member, Rudolph, was elected King of the Franks in 923. After the death of Louis V, the son of Hugh the Great and grandson of Robert I, the Capetian Dynasty, the male-line descendants of Hugh Capet, ruled France continuously from 987 to 1792 and again from 1814 to 1848. They were direct descendants of the Robertian kings, the cadet branches of the dynasty which ruled after 1328, however, are generally given the specific branch names of Valois and Bourbon

4.
Liberalism
–
Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberalism first became a political movement during the Age of Enlightenment. Liberalism rejected the social and political norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy. The 17th-century philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a philosophical tradition. Locke argued that man has a natural right to life, liberty and property. Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with representative democracy, prominent revolutionaries in the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of what they saw as tyrannical rule. Liberalism started to spread rapidly especially after the French Revolution, the 19th century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, South America, and North America. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread even further as liberal democracies found themselves on the side in both world wars. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism became a key component in the expansion of the welfare state, today, liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout the world. Words such as liberal, liberty, libertarian, and libertine all trace their history to the Latin liber, which means free. One of the first recorded instances of the word occurs in 1375. The words early connection with the education of a medieval university soon gave way to a proliferation of different denotations and connotations. In 16th century England, liberal could have positive or negative attributes in referring to someones generosity or indiscretion, in Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare wrote of a liberal villaine who hath. confest his vile encounters. With the rise of the Enlightenment, the word acquired decisively more positive undertones, being defined as free from narrow prejudice in 1781, in 1815, the first use of the word liberalism appeared in English. In Spain, the Liberales, the first group to use the label in a political context. From 1820 to 1823, during the Trienio Liberal, King Ferdinand VII was compelled by the liberales to swear to uphold the Constitution, by the middle of the 19th century, liberal was used as a politicised term for parties and movements worldwide. Over time, the meaning of the word began to diverge in different parts of the world. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, In the United States, liberalism is associated with the policies of the New Deal programme of the Democratic administration of Pres

5.
Age of Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private

6.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51

7.
French Revolutionary Wars
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The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts, lasting from 1792 until 1802, resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted the French First Republic against Britain, Austria and several other monarchies and they are divided in two periods, the War of the First Coalition and the War of the Second Coalition. Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension as the political ambitions of the Revolution expanded, French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe. The Revolutionary Wars began from increasing political pressure on King Louis XVI of France to prove his loyalty to the new direction France was taking. In the spring of 1792, France declared war on Prussia and Austria, the victory rejuvenated the French nation and emboldened the National Convention to abolish the monarchy. A series of victories by the new French armies abruptly ended with defeat at Neerwinden in the spring of 1793, by 1795, the French had captured the Austrian Netherlands and knocked Spain and Prussia out of the war with the Peace of Basel. A hitherto unknown general called Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796, in less than a year, French armies under Napoleon decimated the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching towards Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio, the War of the Second Coalition began with the French invasion of Egypt, headed by Napoleon, in 1798. The Allies took the opportunity presented by the French strategic effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. The war began well for the Allies in Europe, where they pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland—racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano. However, their efforts largely unraveled with the French victory at Zurich in September 1799, meanwhile, Napoleons forces annihilated a series of Egyptian and Ottoman armies at the battles of the Pyramids, Mount Tabor, and Abukir. These victories and the conquest of Egypt further enhanced Napoleons popularity back in France, however, the Royal Navy had managed to inflict a humiliating defeat on the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, further strengthening British control of the Mediterranean. Napoleons arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched a new assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of 1800. This latest effort culminated in a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, another crushing French triumph at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. With Austria and Russia out of the war, the United Kingdom found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleons government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars. The lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, however, in 1789–1792, the entire governmental structure of France was transformed to fall into line with the Revolutionary principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state to be restructured was the army, the transformation of the army was best seen in the officer corps. Before the revolution 90% had been nobility, compared to only 3% in 1794, Revolutionary fervour was high, and was closely monitored by the Committee of Public Safety, which assigned Representatives on Mission to keep watch on generals

8.
History of France
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The first written records for the history of France appear in the Iron Age. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language, over the course of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. Afterwards a Gallo-Roman culture emerged and Gaul was increasingly integrated into the Roman Empire, in the later stages of the Roman Empire, Gaul was subject to barbarian raids and migration, most importantly by the Germanic Franks. The Frankish king Clovis I united most of Gaul under his rule in the late 5th century, Frankish power reached its fullest extent under Charlemagne. The war formally began in 1337 following Philip VIs attempt to seize the Duchy of Aquitaine from its holder, Edward III of England. Despite early Plantagenet victories, including the capture and ransom of John II of France, among the notable figures of the war was Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who led French forces against the English, establishing herself as a national heroine. The war ended with a Valois victory in 1453, victory in the Hundred Years War had the effect of strengthening French nationalism and vastly increasing the power and reach of the French monarchy. During the period known as the Ancien Régime, France transformed into an absolute monarchy. During the next centuries, France experienced the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, Henry, King of Navarre, scion of the Bourbon family, would be victorious in the conflict and establish the French Bourbon dynasty. A burgeoning worldwide colonial empire was established in the 16th century, French political power reached a zenith under the rule of Louis XIV, The Sun King, builder of Versailles Palace. In the late 18th century the monarchy and associated institutions were overthrown in the French Revolution, the country was governed for a period as a Republic, until the French Empire was declared by Napoleon Bonaparte. France was one of the Triple Entente powers in World War I, fighting alongside the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States and smaller allies against Germany and the Central Powers. France was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, the Third Republic was dismantled, and most of the country was controlled directly by Germany while the south was controlled until 1942 by the collaborationist Vichy government. Living conditions were harsh as Germany drained away food and manpower, Charles de Gaulle led the Free France movement that one-by-one took over the colonial empire, and coordinated the wartime Resistance. Following liberation in summer 1944, a Fourth Republic was established, France slowly recovered economically, and enjoyed a baby boom that reversed its very low fertility rate. Long wars in Indochina and Algeria drained French resources and ended in political defeat, in the wake of the Algerian Crisis of 1958, Charles de Gaulle set up the French Fifth Republic. Into the 1960s decolonization saw most of the French colonial empire become independent, while smaller parts were incorporated into the French state as overseas departments, since World War II France has been a permanent member in the UN Security Council and NATO. It played a role in the unification process after 1945 that led to the European Union

9.
Prehistory of France
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Stone tools indicate that early humans were present in France at least 1.57 million years ago. Stone tools discovered at Lézignan-la-Cèbe in 2009 indicate that humans were present in France at least 1.57 million years ago. France includes Olduwan and Acheulean sites from early or non-modern Hominini species, most notably Homo erectus, tooth Arago 149 -560,000 years. Tautavel Man, is a subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus. The Grotte du Vallonnet near Menton contained simple stone tools dating to 1 million to 1.05 million years BC, excavations at Terra Amata found traces of the earliest known domestication of fire in Europe, from 400,000 BC. Importantly, recent findings suggest that Neandertals and modern humans may have interbred, evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals found in Neanderthal settlements Moula-Guercy and Les Pradelles. When they arrived in Europe, they brought with them sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music, some of the oldest works of art in the world, such as the cave paintings at Lascaux in southern France, are datable to shortly after this migration. European Palaeolithic cultures are divided into several subgroups, Aurignacian – responsible for Venus figurines. Périgordian – use of term is debated. Gravettian – responsible for Venus figurines, cave paintings at the Cosquer Cave, solutrean Magdalenian – thought to be responsible for the cave paintings at Pech Merle, Lascaux, the Trois-Frères cave and the Rouffignac Cave also known as The Cave of the hundred mammoths. It possesses the most extensive system of the Périgord in France with more than 8 kilometers of underground passageways. Experts sometimes refer to the Franco-Cantabrian region to describe densely populated region of southern France. From the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, the Magdalenian culture evolved, the Azilian culture was followed by the Sauveterrian in Southern France and Switzerland, the Tardenoisian in Northern France, the Maglemosian in Northern Europe. Archeologists are unsure whether Western Europe saw a Mesolithic immigration, if Gravettian or Epipaleolithic immigrants to Europe were indeed Indo-European, then populations speaking non-Indo-European languages are obvious candidates for previous Paleolithic remnants. The Vascons of the Pyrenees present the strongest case, since their language is related to other in the world. The disappearance of the Doggerland affected the surrounding territories, the Doggerland population had to go as far as northern France and eastern Ireland to escape from the floods. The Neolithic period lasted in northern Europe for approximately 3,000 years, there was an expansion of peoples from southwest Asia into Europe, this diffusion across Europe, from the Aegean to Britain, took about 2,500 years. Within the framework of this theory, which remains the most commonly accepted model of Indo-European expansion

10.
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
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Following the founding of the major trading post of Massalia in 600 BC by the Phocaeans at present day Marseille, Massalians had a complex history of interaction with peoples of the region. The oldest city within modern France, Marseille, was founded around 600 BC by Greeks from the Asia Minor city of Phocaea as a trading post or emporion under the name Μασσαλία, the contours of the Greek city have been partially excavated in several neighborhoods. The Phocaean Greeks introduced the cult of Artemis, as in their other colonies and it is thought that contacts started even earlier however, as Ionian Greeks traded in the Western Mediterranean and Spain, but only very little remains from that earlier period. The Greeks from Phocaea also founded settlements in the island of Corsica, from Massalia, the Phocaean Greeks also founded cities in northeastern Spain such as Emporiae and Rhoda. Before the Greeks came to pre-eminence in the Gulf of Lion, according to Charles Ebel, writing in the 1960s, Massalia was not an isolated Greek city, but had developed an Empire of its own along the coast of southern Gaul by the fourth century. But the idea of a Massalian empire is no longer credible in the light of recent archaeological evidence, however further archaeological evidence since shows Massalia had over twelve cities in its network in France, Spain, Monaco and Corsica. Cities Massalia founded that still exist today are Nice, Antibes, Monaco, Le Brusc, Agde, there is evidence of direct rule of at least two of their cities with a flexible system of autonomy as suggested by Emporion and Rhodus own coin minting. Massalias empire was not the same as the monolithic of the ancient world or of the century being a scattered group of cities connected by the sea. The Delian League was also a group of cities spread far across the sea. Greek Marseille eventually became a centre of culture which drew some Roman parents to send their children there to be educated. According to earlier views, a hellenization of Southern France prior to the Roman Conquest of Transalpine Gaul is thought to have been largely due to the influence of Massalia. However, more recent scholarship has shown that the idea of Hellenization was illusory, the power and cultural influence of Massalia have been called into question by demonstrating the limited territorial control of the city and showing the distinctive cultures of indigenous societies. The site of Vix in northern Burgundy is an example of a Hallstatt settlement where such Mediterranean objects were consumed. Some, like the famous Vix krater, were spectacular in nature, from Marseille, maritime trade also developed with Languedoc and Etruria, and with the Greek city of Emporiae on the coast of Spain. The mother city of Phocaea would ultimately be destroyed by the Persians in 545, trading links were extensive, in iron, spices, wheat and slaves. However, the evidence for this is weak, at best, overland trade with Celtic countries beyond the Mediterranean region declined around 500 BC, in conjunction with the troubles following the end of the Halstatt civilization. The site of Mont Lassois was abandoned around that time, the Greek colony of Massalia remained active in the following centuries. Around 325 BC, Pytheas made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe as far as the Arctic Circle from his city of Marseilles

Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
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Location of the Greek colony of Marseille.
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
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Remains of the Greek harbour in the Jardin des Vestiges in central Marseille, the most extensive Greek settlement in pre-Roman Gaul
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
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In legend, Gyptis, daughter of the king of the Segobriges, chose the Greek Protis, who then received a site for founding Massalia.
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
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The Vix krater, an imported Greek wine-mixing vessel from 500 BC attests to the trade exchanges of the period

11.
Gaul
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It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts, Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek and modern Latin. The Greek and Latin names Galatia, and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal-to-. Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians to the supposedly milk-white skin of the Gauls, modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu, Cornish galloes, capacity, power, thus meaning powerful people. The English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, as adjectives, English has the two variants, Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls, although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French, also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael. The Irish word gall did originally mean a Gaul, i. e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to foreigner, to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, by 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spreads rapidly across the territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, farther north extended the contemporary pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina, while some scholars believe the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century, in addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture, the prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC, whereas on the first occasion they came and went, on the second they stayed. Massilia was allowed to keep its lands, but Rome added to its territories the lands of the conquered tribes. The direct result of conquests was that by now, Rome controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône river

12.
Roman Gaul
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Roman Gaul refers to Gaul under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. The Roman Republic began its takeover of Celtic Gaul in 121 BC, julius Caesar significantly advanced the task by defeating the Celtic tribes in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC. In 22 BC, imperial administration of Gaul was reorganized, establishing the provinces of Gallia Aquitania, Gallia Belgica, parts of eastern Gaul were incorporated into the provinces Raetia and Germania Superior. During Late Antiquity, Gaulish and Roman culture amalgamated into a hybrid Gallo-Roman culture, the Gaulish language was marginalized and eventually extinct, being replaced by regional forms of Late Latin which in the medieval period developed into the group of Gallo-Romance languages. Roman control over the provinces deteriorated in the 4th and 5th centuries, the last vestiges of any Roman control over parts of Gaul were effaced with the defeat of Syagrius at the Battle of Soissons. Gaul had three divisions, one of which was divided into multiple Roman provinces, Gallia Cisalpina or Gaul this side of the Alps. Gallia Narbonensis, formerly Gallia Transalpina or Gaul across the Alps was originally conquered and annexed in 121 BC in an attempt to solidify communications between Rome and the Iberian peninsula. It comprised the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur, most of Languedoc-Roussillon. Gallia Comata, or long haired Gaul, encompassed the remainder of present-day France, Belgium, and westernmost Germany, gauls continued writing some inscriptions in the Gaulish language, but switched from the Greek alphabet to the Latin alphabet during the Roman period. The Roman influence was most apparent in the areas of religion and administration. The Druidic religion was suppressed by Emperor Claudius I, and in later centuries Christianity was introduced, the prohibition of Druids and the syncretic nature of the Roman religion led to disappearance of the Celtic religion. It remains to this day poorly understood, current knowledge of the Celtic religion is based on archeology and via literary sources from several isolated areas such as Ireland, the Romans easily imposed their administrative, economic, artistic and literary culture. They wore the Roman tunic instead of their traditional clothing, the Romano-Gauls generally lived in the vici, small villages similar to those in Italy, or in villae, for the richest. Surviving Celtic influences also infiltrated back into the Roman Imperial culture in the 3rd century, for example, the Gaulish tunic—which gave Emperor Caracalla his surname—had not been replaced by Roman fashion. Similarly, certain Gaulish artisan techniques, such as the barrel, the Celtic heritage also continued in the spoken language. Gaulish spelling and pronunciation of Latin are apparent in several 5th century poets, the last pockets of Gaulish speakers appear to have lingered until the 6th or 7th century. Germanic placenames were first attested in border areas settled by Germanic colonizers, from the 4th to 5th centuries, the Franks settled in northern France and Belgium, the Alemanni in Alsace and Switzerland, and the Burgundians in Savoie. The Roman administration finally collapsed as remaining Roman troops withdrew southeast to protect Italy, between 455 and 476 the Visigoths, the Burgundians, and the Franks assumed control in Gaul

13.
Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia

Francia
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The partition of the Frankish kingdom among the four sons of Clovis with Clotilde presiding, Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis (Bibliothèque municipale de Toulouse).
Francia
Francia
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The political divisions of Gaul at the inception of Clovis 's career (481). Note that only the Burgundian kingdom and the province of Septimania remained unconquered at his death (511).
Francia
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The division of Francia on Clovis 's death (511). The kingdoms were not geographic unities because they were formed in an attempt to create equal-sized fiscs. The discrepancy in size reveals the concentration of Roman fiscal lands.

14.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy

Franks
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Aristocratic Frankish grave goods from the Merovingian period
Franks
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A 19th century depiction of different Franks (AD 400–600)
Franks
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Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing Francia at the top
Franks
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A 6th-7th century necklace of glass and ceramic beads with a central amethyst bead. Similar necklaces have been found in the graves of Frankish women in the Rhineland.

15.
Merovingian dynasty
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The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that ruled the Franks for nearly 300 years in a region known as Francia in Latin, beginning in the middle of the 5th century. Their territory largely corresponded to ancient Gaul as well as the Roman provinces of Raetia, Germania Superior and the southern part of Germania. The Merovingian dynasty was founded by Childeric I, the son of Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, after the death of Clovis there were frequent clashes between different branches of the family, but when threatened by its neighbours the Merovingians presented a strong united front. During the final century of Merovingian rule, the kings were increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role, the Merovingian rule ended in March 752 when Pope Zachary formally deposed Childeric III. Zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, confirmed and anointed Pepin the Short in 754, the Merovingian ruling family were sometimes referred to as the long-haired kings by contemporaries, as their long hair distinguished them among the Franks, who commonly cut their hair short. The Merovingian dynasty owes its name to the semi-legendary Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, the victories of his son Childeric I against the Visigoths, Saxons, and Alemanni established the basis of Merovingian land. Childerics son Clovis I went on to unite most of Gaul north of the Loire under his control around 486, when he defeated Syagrius, the Roman ruler in those parts. He won the Battle of Tolbiac against the Alemanni in 496, at time, according to Gregory of Tours. He subsequently went on to defeat the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé in 507. After Cloviss death, his kingdom was partitioned among his four sons, leadership among the early Merovingians was probably based on mythical descent and alleged divine patronage, expressed in terms of continued military success. In 1906 the British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie suggested that the Marvingi recorded by Ptolemy as living near the Rhine were the ancestors of the Merovingian dynasty, upon Cloviss death in 511, the Merovingian kingdom included all of Gaul except Burgundy and all of Germania magna except Saxony. To the outside, the kingdom, even when divided under different kings, maintained unity, after the fall of the Ostrogoths, the Franks also conquered Provence. After this their borders with Italy and Visigothic Septimania remained fairly stable, internally, the kingdom was divided among Cloviss sons and later among his grandsons and frequently saw war between the different kings, who quickly allied among themselves and against one another. The death of one king created conflict between the brothers and the deceaseds sons, with differing outcomes. Later, conflicts were intensified by the personal feud around Brunhilda, however, yearly warfare often did not constitute general devastation but took on an almost ritual character, with established rules and norms. Eventually, Clotaire II in 613 reunited the entire Frankish realm under one ruler, later divisions produced the stable units of Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitania. The frequent wars had weakened royal power, while the aristocracy had made great gains and these concessions saw the very considerable power of the king parcelled out and retained by leading comites and duces. Very little is in fact known about the course of the 7th century due to a scarcity of sources, clotaires son Dagobert I, who sent troops to Spain and pagan Slavic territories in the east, is commonly seen as the last powerful Merovingian King

16.
Carolingian dynasty
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The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name Carolingian derives from the Latinised name of Charles Martel, the Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of Romans in over three centuries. His death in 814 began a period of fragmentation of the Carolingian empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France. This picture, however, is not commonly accepted today, the greatest Carolingian monarch was Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome in 800. His empire, ostensibly a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, is referred to historiographically as the Carolingian Empire, the Carolingian rulers did not give up the traditional Frankish practice of dividing inheritances among heirs, though the concept of the indivisibility of the Empire was also accepted. The Carolingians had the practice of making their sons kings in the various regions of the Empire. The Carolingians were displaced in most of the regna of the Empire by 888 and they ruled in East Francia until 911 and held the throne of West Francia intermittently until 987. One chronicler of Sens dates the end of Carolingian rule with the coronation of Robert II of France as junior co-ruler with his father, Hugh Capet, the dynasty became extinct in the male line with the death of Eudes, Count of Vermandois. His sister Adelaide, the last Carolingian, died in 1122, the Carolingian dynasty has five distinct branches, The Lombard branch, or Vermandois branch, or Herbertians, descended from Pepin of Italy, son of Charlemagne. Though he did not outlive his father, his son Bernard was allowed to retain Italy, Bernard rebelled against his uncle Louis the Pious, and lost both his kingdom and his life. Deprived of the title, the members of this branch settled in France. The counts of Vermandois perpetuated the Carolingian line until the 12th century, the Counts of Chiny and the lords of Mellier, Neufchâteau and Falkenstein are branches of the Herbertians. With the descendants of the counts of Chiny, there would have been Herbertian Carolingians to the early 14th century, the Lotharingian branch, descended from Emperor Lothair, eldest son of Louis the Pious. At his death Middle Francia was divided equally between his three surviving sons, into Italy, Lotharingia and Lower Burgundy, the sons of Emperor Lothair did not have sons of their own, so Middle Francia was divided between the western and eastern branches of the family in 875. The Aquitainian branch, descended from Pepin of Aquitaine, son of Louis the Pious, since he did not outlive his father, his sons were deprived of Aquitaine in favor of his younger brother Charles the Bald. The German branch, descended from Louis the German, King of East Francia, since he had three sons, his lands were divided into Duchy of Bavaria, Duchy of Saxony and Duchy of Swabia. His youngest son Charles the Fat briefly reunited both East and West Francia — the entirety of the Carolingian empire — but it again after his death. With the failure of the lines of the German branch, Arnulf of Carinthia

17.
France in the Middle Ages
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From the 13th century on, the state slowly regained control of a number of these lost powers. The crises of the 13th and 14th centuries led to the convening of an assembly, the Estates General. From the Middle Ages onward, French rulers believed their kingdoms had natural borders, the Pyrenees, the Alps and this was used as a pretext for an aggressive policy and repeated invasions. The belief, however, had little basis in reality for not all of territories were part of the Kingdom. France had important rivers that were used as waterways, the Loire, the Rhone and these rivers were settled earlier than the rest and important cities were founded on their banks but they were separated by large forests, marsh, and other rough terrains. Before the Romans conquered Gaul, the Gauls lived in villages organised in wider tribes, the Romans referred to the smallest of these groups as pagi and the widest ones as civitates. These pagi and civitates were often taken as a basis for the imperial administration and these religious provinces would survive until the French revolution. Discussion of the size of France in the Middle Ages is complicated by distinctions between lands personally held by the king and lands held in homage by another lord, the domaine royal of the Capetians was limited to the regions around Paris, Bourges and Sens. The great majority of French territory was part of Aquitaine, the Duchy of Normandy, the Duchy of Brittany, the Comté of Champagne, the Duchy of Burgundy, and other territories. Philip II Augustus undertook a massive French expansion in the 13th century, only in the 15th century would Charles VII and Louis XI gain control of most of modern-day France. The weather in France and Europe in the Middle Ages was significantly milder than during the preceding or following it. Historians refer to this as the Medieval Warm Period, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century, part of the French population growth in this period is directly linked to this temperate weather and its effect on crops and livestock. At the end of the Middle Ages, France was the most populous region in Europe—having overtaken Spain, in the 14th century, before the arrival of the Black Death, the total population of the area covered by modern-day France has been estimated at around 17 million. The population of Paris is controversial, josiah Russell argued for about 80,000 in the early 14th century, although he noted that some other scholars suggested 200,000. The higher count would make it by far the largest city in western Europe, the Black Death killed an estimated one-third of the population from its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery and it would be the mid-16th century before the population recovered to mid-fourteenth century levels. The vast majority of the population spoke a variety of vernacular languages derived from vulgar Latin. Modern linguists typically add a group within France around Lyon

France in the Middle Ages
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A view of the remains of the Abbey of Cluny, a Benedictine monastery, was the centre of monastic life revival in the Middle Ages and marked an important step in the cultural rebirth following the Dark Ages.
France in the Middle Ages
France in the Middle Ages
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Godefroy de Bouillon, a French knight, leader of the First Crusade and founder of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
France in the Middle Ages
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Philip II victorious at Bouvines thus annexing Normandy and Anjou into his royal domains. This battle involved a complex set of alliances from three important states, the Kingdoms of France and England and the Holy Roman Empire.

18.
House of Capet
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The House of Capet or the Direct Capetians, also called the House of France, or simply the Capets, ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians, historians in the 19th century came to apply the name Capetian to both the ruling house of France and to the wider-spread male-line descendants of Hugh Capet. It was not a contemporary practice and they were sometimes called the third race of kings, the Merovingians being the first, and the Carolingians being the second. The name is derived from the nickname of Hugh, the first Capetian King, the direct succession of French kings, father to son, from 987 to 1316, of thirteen generations in almost 330 years, was unparallelled in recorded history. The direct line of the House of Capet came to an end in 1328, with the death of Charles IV, the throne passed to the House of Valois, descended from a younger brother of Philip IV. He then proceeded to make it hereditary in his family, by securing the election and coronation of his son, Robert II, the throne thus passed securely to Robert on his fathers death, who followed the same custom – as did many of his early successors. Louis VIII – the eldest son and heir of Philip Augustus – married Blanche of Castile, a granddaughter of Aliénor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England. In her name, he claimed the crown of England, invading at the invitation of the English Barons and these lands were added to the French crown, further empowering the Capetian family. Louis IX – Saint Louis – succeeded Louis VIII as a child, unable to rule for several years, the government of the realm was undertaken by his mother, at the death of Louis IX, France under the Capetians stood as the pre-eminent power in Western Europe. Unfortunately for the Capetians, the proved a failure. Philip IV had married Jeanne, the heiress of Navarre and Champagne, by this marriage, he added these domains to the French crown. More importantly to French history, he summoned the first Estates General – in 1302 – and in 1295 established the so-called Auld Alliance with the Scots and it was Philip IV who presided over the beginning of his Houses end. The first quarter of the century saw each of Philips sons reign in rapid succession, Louis X, Philip V, accordingly, Louis – unwilling to release his wife and return to their marriage – needed to remarry. He arranged a marriage with his cousin, Clementia of Hungary and this proved the case, but the boy – King John I, known as the Posthumous – died after only 5 days, leaving a succession crisis. Eventually, it was decided based on several reasons that Joan was ineligible to inherit the throne, which passed to the Count of Poitiers. Marie died in 1324, giving birth to a stillborn son, the last of the direct Capetians were the daughters of Philip IVs three sons, and Philip IVs daughter, Isabella. Since they were female, they could not transmit their Capetian status to their descendants, the wife of Edward II of England, Isabella overthrew her husband in favour of her son and her co-hort, only for Edward III to execute Mortimer and have Isabella removed from power. Joan, the daughter of Louis X, succeeded on the death of Charles IV to the throne of Navarre, she now being – questions of paternity aside – the unquestioned heiress

House of Capet
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Arms of the King of France

19.
House of Valois
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The House of Valois was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. They succeeded the House of Capet to the French throne, and were the house of France from 1328 to 1589. Junior members of the family founded cadet branches in Orléans, Anjou, Burgundy, the Valois descended from Charles, Count of Valois, the second surviving son of King Philip III of France. Their title to the throne was based on a precedent in 1316, the Capetian dynasty seemed secure both during and after the reign of Philip IV from 1285 to 1313. Philip had left three surviving sons and a daughter, each son became king in turn but died young without male heirs, leaving only daughters who could not inherit the throne. When Charles IV died in 1328, the French succession became more problematic, in 1328 three candidates had plausible claims to the throne, Philip, Count of Valois, son of Charles of Valois, who was the closest heir in male line and a grandson of Philip III. Because his father was the brother of the late Philip IV, he was therefore a nephew of Philip IV, further, Charles IV had chosen him as the regent before his death. Philip, Count of Évreux, another nephew of Philip IV and he strengthened his position by marrying Joan of France, daughter of Louis X. Edward III of England, son of Isabella of France, daughter and only surviving child of Philip IV. Edward claimed to be the heir as a grandson of Philip IV, in England, Isabella of France claimed the throne on behalf of her son. Like the French, the English law of succession did not allow the succession of females, the French rejected Isabellas claims, arguing that since she herself, as a woman, could not succeed, then she could not transmit any such right to her son. Thus the French magnates chose Philip of Valois, who became Philip VI of France, the throne of Navarre went its separate way, to Joan of France, daughter of Louis X, who became Joan II of Navarre. Because diplomacy and negotiation had failed, Edward III would have to back his claims with force to obtain the French throne, for a few years, England and France maintained an uneasy peace. Eventually, an escalation of conflict between the two led to the confiscation of the duchy of Aquitaine. Instead of paying homage to the French king, as his ancestors had done and these events helped launch the Hundred Years War between England and France. The Hundred Years War could be considered a war of succession between the houses of Valois and Plantagenet. The early reign of Philip VI was a one for France. The new king fought the Flemings on behalf of his vassal, the count of Flanders, Edward IIIs aggression against Scotland, a French ally, prompted Philip VI to confiscate Guyenne. In the past the English kings would have to submit to the King of France, but Edward, having descended from the French kings, claimed the throne for himself

House of Valois
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Arms of the King of France since 1376

20.
Early modern France
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The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Revolution, was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon. This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime, the territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, in addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families. The late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries would see France undergo a massive territorial expansion, France also embarked on exploration, colonisation, and mercantile exchanges with the Americas, India, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, and a few African trading posts. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is called the Ancien Régime. The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348, the concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery. It would be the early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th century levels and these demographic changes also led to a massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe, other major French cities include Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseille. These centuries saw several periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars, between 1693 and 1694, France lost 6% of its population. In the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3. 5% of its population, in the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included. Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme, before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages whereas the written and administrative language remained Latin. Nevertheless, in 1790, only half of the spoke or understood standard French. The southern half of the continued to speak Occitan languages, and other inhabitants spoke Breton, Catalan, Basque, Dutch. In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues doïl continued to be spoken in rural communities, during the French revolution, the teaching of French was promoted in all the schools. The French used would be that of the system, which differed from the French spoken in the courts of France before the revolution. Like the orators during the French revolution, the pronunciation of every syllable would become the new language, France would not become a linguistically unified country until the end of the 19th century. The Peace of Etaples marks, for some, the beginning of the modern period in France. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 began 62 years of war with the Habsburgs, in 1445, the first steps were made towards fashioning a regular army out of the poorly disciplined mercenary bands that French kings traditionally relied on

Early modern France
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Francis I by Jean Clouet
Early modern France
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France on the eve of the modern era (1477). The red line denotes the boundary of the French kingdom, while the light blue the royal domain.
Early modern France
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Henry IV of France by Frans Pourbus the younger.
Early modern France
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Louis XIV King of France and of Navarre By Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)

21.
House of Bourbon
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The House of Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century, by the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs, the royal Bourbons originated in 1268, when the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon married a younger son of King Louis IX. The house continued for three centuries as a branch, while more senior Capetians ruled France, until Henry IV became the first Bourbon king of France in 1589. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, a cadet Bourbon branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years, until it too was overthrown. The Princes de Condé were a branch of the Bourbons descended from an uncle of Henry IV. Both houses were prominent in French affairs, even during exile in the French Revolution, until their respective extinctions in 1830 and 1814. When the Bourbons inherited the strongest claim to the Spanish throne, the claim was passed to a cadet Bourbon prince, a grandson of Louis XIV of France, who became Philip V of Spain. The Spanish House of Bourbon has been overthrown and restored several times, reigning 1700–1808, 1813–1868, 1875–1931, Bourbons ruled in Naples from 1734–1806 and in Sicily from 1734–1816, and in a unified Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1816–1860. They also ruled in Parma from 1731–1735, 1748–1802 and 1847–1859, all legitimate, living members of the House of Bourbon, including its cadet branches, are direct agnatic descendants of Henry IV. The term House of Bourbon is sometimes used to refer to this first house and the House of Bourbon-Dampierre, the second family to rule the seigneury. In 1268, Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son of King Louis IX of France, married Beatrix of Bourbon, heiress to the lordship of Bourbon and their son Louis was made Duke of Bourbon in 1327. His descendant, the Constable of France Charles de Bourbon, was the last of the senior Bourbon line when he died in 1527. Because he chose to fight under the banner of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and lived in exile from France, the remaining line of Bourbons henceforth descended from James I, Count of La Marche, the younger son of Louis I, Duke of Bourbon. With the death of his grandson James II, Count of La Marche in 1438, all future Bourbons would descend from James IIs younger brother, Louis, who became the Count of Vendôme through his mothers inheritance. In 1514, Charles, Count of Vendôme had his title raised to Duke of Vendôme and his son Antoine became King of Navarre, on the northern side of the Pyrenees, by marriage in 1555. Two of Antoines younger brothers were Cardinal Archbishop Charles de Bourbon, Louis male-line, the Princes de Condé, survived until 1830. Finally, in 1589, the House of Valois died out and he was born on 13 December 1553 in the Kingdom of Navarre

House of Bourbon
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The castle of Bourbon-l'Archambault
House of Bourbon
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House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
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Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon King of France
House of Bourbon
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Dynastic group portrait of Louis XIV (seated) with his son le Grand Dauphin (to the left), his grandson Louis, Duke of Burgundy (to the right), his great-grandson the duc d'Anjou, later Louis XV, and Madame de Ventadour, his governess, who commissioned this painting some years later; busts of Henry IV and Louis XIII in the background.

22.
France in the long nineteenth century
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The 19th century would complete the process by the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the city of Nice and some small papal and foreign possessions. Savoy and the Nice were definitively annexed following Frances victory in the Franco-Austrian War in 1859, in 1830, France invaded Algeria, and in 1848 this north African country was fully integrated into France as a département. The late 19th century saw France embark on a program of overseas imperialism — including French Indochina. Unlike other European countries, France did not experience a population growth from the middle of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The French population in 1789 is estimated at roughly 28 million, by 1850, it was 36 million, until 1850, population growth was mainly in the countryside, but a period of massive urbanization began under the Second Empire. Unlike in England, industrialization was a phenomenon in France. In addition, France was occupied by 1.2 million foreign soldiers and France had to pay the costs of their accommodation, therefore, France had little resources to invest in industrial modernization. Frances economy in the 1830s developed gradually, the systematic establishment of primary education and the creation of new engineering schools prepared an industrial expansion which would blossom in the following decades. French rail transport only began hesitantly in the 1830s, and would not truly develop until the 1840s, by the revolution of 1848, a growing industrial workforce began to participate actively in French politics, but their hopes were largely betrayed by the policies of the Second Empire. The loss of the important coal, steel and glass production regions of Alsace, the industrial worker population increased from 23% in 1870 to 39% in 1914. Nevertheless, France remained a rural country in the early 1900s with 40% of the population still farmers in 1914. While exhibiting a similar rate as the U. S. the urbanization rate of France was still well behind the one of the UK. In the 19th century, France was a country of immigration for peoples and political refugees from Eastern Europe, France was the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population during the French Revolution. The Crémieux Decree gave full citizenship for the Jews in French Algeria, with the loss of Alsace and Lorraine,5000 French refugees from these regions emigrated to Algeria in the 1870s and 1880s, as did too other Europeans seeking opportunity. In 1889, non-French Europeans in Algeria were granted French citizenship, France suffered massive losses during World War I — roughly estimated at 1.4 million French dead including civilians and four times as many wounded. People in the countryside spoke various dialects, France would only become a linguistically unified country by the end of the 19th century, and in particular through the educational policies of Jules Ferry during the French Third Republic. From an illiteracy rate of 33% among peasants in 1870, by 1914 almost all French could read and understand the national language, although 50% still understood or spoke a regional language of France. Through the educational, social and military policies of the Third Republic, the reign of Louis XVI saw a temporary revival of French fortunes, but the over-ambitious projects and military campaigns of the 18th century had produced chronic financial problems

France in the long nineteenth century
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A map of France in 1843 under the July Monarchy
France in the long nineteenth century
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French peasants depicted in Fin du travail (1887)
France in the long nineteenth century
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Workers unloading flour in Paris, 1885
France in the long nineteenth century
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Wealthy women in an urban café or patisserie, 1889.

23.
French First Republic
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In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged in war with Prussia and Austria. The foreign threat exacerbated Frances political turmoil amid the French Revolution and deepened the passion, in the violence of 10 August 1792, citizens stormed the Tuileries Palace, killing six hundred of the Kings Swiss guards and insisting on the removal of the king. A renewed fear of action prompted further violence, and in the first week of September 1792, mobs of Parisians broke into the citys prisons. This included nobles, clergymen, and political prisoners, but also numerous common criminals, such as prostitutes and petty thieves, many murdered in their cells—raped, stabbed and this became known as the September Massacres. The resulting Convention was founded with the purpose of abolishing the monarchy. The Conventions first act, on 10 August 1792, was to establish the French First Republic, the King, by then a private citizen bearing his family name of Capet, was subsequently put on trial for crimes of high treason starting in December 1792. On 16 January 1793 he was convicted, and on 21 January, throughout the winter of 1792 and spring of 1793, Paris was plagued by food riots and mass hunger. The new Convention did little to remedy the problem until late spring of 1793, despite growing discontent with the National Convention as a ruling body, in June the Convention drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was ratified by popular vote in early August. The Committees laws and policies took the revolution to unprecedented heights, after the arrest and execution of Robespierre in July 1794, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were reinstated. A year later, the National Convention adopted the Constitution of the Year III and they reestablished freedom of worship, began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated elections for a new legislative body. On 3 November 1795, the Directory was established, the period known as the French Consulate began with the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Members of the Directory itself planned the coup, indicating clearly the failing power of the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte was a co-conspirator in the coup, and became head of the government as the First Consul. He would later proclaim himself Emperor of the French, ending the First French Republic and ushering in the French First Empire

French First Republic
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Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power during the Coup of 18 Brumaire
French First Republic
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Flag

24.
First French Empire
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The First French Empire, Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Its name was a misnomer, as France already had colonies overseas and was short lived compared to the Colonial Empire, a series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, extended French influence over much of Western Europe and into Poland. The plot included Bonapartes brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, on 9 November 1799 and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control. They dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. He thus became the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, the Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea that was to continue its development until Napoleons Moscow campaign. Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, the Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce. He gradually extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples, then he laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope. Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the new bourgeoisie, on 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France. This action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif, a general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay. On 2 August 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life, pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the Recess of 1803, which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to Frances side. The memories of imperial Rome were for a time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne. The Treaty of Pressburg, signed on 26 December 1805, did little other than create a more unified Germany to threaten France. On the other hand, Napoleons creation of the Kingdom of Italy, the occupation of Ancona, to create satellite states, Napoleon installed his relatives as rulers of many European states. The Bonapartes began to marry into old European monarchies, gaining sovereignty over many nations, in addition to the vassal titles, Napoleons closest relatives were also granted the title of French Prince and formed the Imperial House of France. Met with opposition, Napoleon would not tolerate any neutral power, Prussia had been offered the territory of Hanover to stay out of the Third Coalition. With the diplomatic situation changing, Napoleon offered Great Britain the province as part of a peace proposal and this, combined with growing tensions in Germany over French hegemony, Prussia responded by forming an alliance with Russia and sending troops into Bavaria on 1 October 1806. In this War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon destroyed the armies of Frederick William at Jena-Auerstedt, the Eylau and the Friedland against the Russians finally ruined Frederick the Greats formerly mighty kingdom, obliging Russia and Prussia to make peace with France at Tilsit. The Treaties of Tilsit ended the war between Russia and the French Empire and began an alliance between the two empires that held power of much of the rest of Europe, the two empires secretly agreed to aid each other in disputes

First French Empire
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The Battle of Austerlitz
First French Empire
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Flag
First French Empire
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The Arc de Triomphe, ordered by Napoleon in honour of his Grande Armée, is one of the several landmarks whose construction was started in Paris during the First French Empire.
First French Empire
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Napoleon reviews the Imperial Guard before the Battle of Jena, 1806

25.
Bourbon Restoration
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The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history following the fall of Napoleon in 1814 until the July Revolution of 1830. The brothers of executed Louis XVI of France reigned in highly conservative fashion, and they were nonetheless unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna they were treated respectfully, but had to give up all the gains made since 1789. King Louis XVI of the House of Bourbon had been overthrown and executed during the French Revolution, a coalition of European powers defeated Napoleon in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ended the First Empire in 1814, and restored the monarchy to the brothers of Louis XVI. The Bourbon Restoration lasted from 6 April 1814 until the uprisings of the July Revolution of 1830. There was an interlude in spring 1815—the Hundred Days—when the return of Napoleon forced the Bourbons to flee France, when Napoleon was again defeated by the Seventh Coalition they returned to power in July. During the Restoration, the new Bourbon regime was a monarchy, unlike the absolutist Ancien Régime. The period was characterized by a conservative reaction, and consequent minor but consistent occurrences of civil unrest. It also saw the reestablishment of the Catholic Church as a power in French politics. The eras of the French Revolution and Napoleon brought a series of changes to France which the Bourbon Restoration did not reverse. First of all, France became highly centralized, with all decisions made in Paris, the political geography was completely reorganized and made uniform. France was divided more than 80 departments, which have endured into the 21st century. Each department had an administrative structure, and was tightly controlled by a prefect appointed by Paris. The Catholic Church lost all its lands and buildings during the Revolution, the bishop still ruled his diocese, and communicated with the pope through the government in Paris. Bishops, priests, nuns and other people were paid salaries by the state. All the old rites and ceremonies were retained, and the government maintained the religious buildings. The Church was allowed to operate its own seminaries and to some extent local schools as well, bishops were much less powerful than before, and had no political voice. However, the Catholic Church reinvented itself and put a new emphasis on personal religiosity that gave it a hold on the psychology of the faithful, education was centralized, with the Grand Master of the University of France controlling every element of the entire educational system from Paris

26.
July Monarchy
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The July Monarchy, was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under Louis Philippe I, starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. It began with the overthrow of the government of Charles X. The king promised to follow the juste milieu, or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of the supporters of Charles X. The July Monarchy was dominated by wealthy bourgeoisie and numerous former Napoleonic officials and it followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of François Guizot. The king promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, by 1848, a year in which many European states had a revolution, the kings popularity had collapsed and he was overthrown. Louis Phillipe was pushed to the throne by an alliance between the people of Paris, the republicans, who had set up barricades in the capital, and the liberal bourgeoisie. However, at the end of his reign the so-called Citizen King was overthrown by similar barricades during the February Revolution of 1848, the Legitimists withdrew from the political stage to their castles, leaving the stage opened for the struggle between the Orleanists and the Republicans. Louis-Philippe was crowned King of the French, instead of King of France, Louis-Philippe, who had flirted with liberalism in his youth, rejected much of the pomp and circumstance of the Bourbons and surrounded himself with merchants and bankers. The July Monarchy, however, remained a time of turmoil, a large group of Legitimists on the right demanded the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne. On the left, Republicanism and, later Socialism, remained a powerful force, late in his reign Louis-Philippe became increasingly rigid and dogmatic and his President of the Council, François Guizot, had become deeply unpopular, but Louis-Philippe refused to remove him. The situation gradually escalated until the Revolutions of 1848 saw the fall of the monarchy, however, during the first several years of his regime, Louis-Philippe appeared to move his government toward legitimate, broad-based reform. And indeed, Louis-Phillipe and his ministers adhered to policies that seemed to promote the central tenets of the constitution, thus, though the July Monarchy seemed to move toward reform, this movement was largely illusory. During the years of the July Monarchy, enfranchisement roughly doubled, however, this still represented only roughly one percent of population, and as the requirements for voting were tax-based, only the wealthiest gained the privilege. By implication, the enlarged enfranchisement tended to favor the wealthy merchant bourgeoisie more than any other group, beyond simply increasing their presence within the Chamber of Deputies, this electoral enlargement provided the bourgeoisie the means by which to challenge the nobility in legislative matters. Thus, while appearing to honor his pledge to increase suffrage, Louis-Philippe acted primarily to empower his supporters, the inclusion of only the wealthiest also tended to undermine any possibility of the growth of a radical faction in Parliament, effectively serving socially conservative ends. The reformed Charter of 1830 limited the power of the King—stripping him of his ability to propose and decree legislation, one of the first acts of Louis-Philippe in constructing his cabinet was to appoint the rather conservative Casimir Perier as the premier of that body. Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican secret societies, in addition, he oversaw the dismemberment of the National Guard after it proved too supportive of radical ideologies. He performed all of actions, of course, with royal approval

27.
French Second Republic
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The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, the Second Republic witnessed the tension between the Social and Democratic Republic and a liberal form of Republic, which exploded during the June Days Uprising of 1848. The industrial population of the faubourgs was welcomed by the National Guard on their way towards the centre of Paris, barricades were raised after the shooting of protestors outside the Guizot manor by soldiers. On 23 February 1848 Guizots cabinet resigned, abandoned by the petite bourgeoisie, the heads of the Left Centre and the dynastic Left, Molé and Thiers, declined the offered leadership. Odilon Barrot accepted it, and Bugeaud, commander-in-chief of the first military division, in the face of the insurrection which had now taken possession of the whole capital, Louis-Philippe decided to abdicate in favour of his grandson, Philippe, comte de Paris. The Republic was then proclaimed by Alphonse de Lamartine in the name of the government elected by the Chamber under the pressure of the mob. But this time the Palais Bourbon was not victorious over the Hôtel de Ville and it had to consent to a fusion of the two bodies, in which, however, the predominating elements were the moderate republicans. It was uncertain what the policy of the new government would be, the other party wished to maintain society on the basis of its traditional institutions, and rallied round the tricolore. The first collision took place as to the form which the 1848 Revolution was to take. On 5 March the government, under the pressure of the Parisian clubs, decided in favour of a reference to the people, and direct universal suffrage. This added the uneducated masses to the electorate and led to the election of the Constituent Assembly of 4 May 1848, the socialists thus formed a sort of state-within-a-state, complete with a government and an armed force. Even this pitiful dole, with no obligation to work, proved attractive, and all over France, workmen quit their jobs and traveled to Paris, where they swelled the ranks of the army under the red flag. The socialist economic plan was straining state finances, and as the émeute of 15 May had proven that it constituted a menace to the state. The socialist party was defeated and afterwards its members were deported, by the massacres of the June Days, the working classes were also alienated from it. The Duke of Wellington wrote at this time, France needs a Napoleon, the granting of universal suffrage to a society with Imperialist sympathies would benefit reactionaries, which culminated in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the republic. The new constitution, proclaiming a republic, direct universal suffrage. Under the new constitution, there was to be a single permanent Assembly of 750 members elected for a term of three years by the scrutin de liste, the Assembly would elect members of a Council of State to serve for six years. Laws would be proposed by the Council of State, to be voted on by the Assembly and he was to choose his ministers, who, like him, would be responsible to the Assembly

French Second Republic
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"Messrs. Victor Hugo and Émile de Girardin try to raise Prince Louis upon a shield [in the heroic Roman fashion]: not too steady!" Honoré Daumier 's: satirical lithograph published in Charivari, 11 December 1848
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28.
Second French Empire
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The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor

Second French Empire
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Napoléon III
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The official declaration of the Second Empire, at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, on December 2, 1852.

29.
French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again

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A French propaganda poster from 1917 is captioned with an 18th century quote: "Even in 1788, Mirabeau was saying that War is the National Industry of Prussia."
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The Sacré-Cœur Basilica was built as a symbol of the Ordre Moral.
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In France, children were taught in school not to forget the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, which were coloured in black on maps.

30.
France in the twentieth century
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Alsace-Lorraine would be restored at the end of World War I. Unlike other European countries France did not experience a population growth in the mid and late 19th century. From a population of around 39 million in 1880, France still had only a population of 40 million in 1945, the post-war years would bring a massive baby boom, and with immigration, France reached 50 million in 1968. This growth slowed down in 1974, since 1999, France has seen an unprecedented growth in population. In 2004, population growth was 0. 68%, almost reaching North American levels, France is now well ahead of all other European countries in population growth and in 2003, Frances natural population growth was responsible for almost all the natural growth in European population. Today, France, with a population of 62 and a million, or 65 million including overseas territories, is the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia. Immigration in the 20th century differed significantly from that of the previous century, the 1920s saw great influxes from Italy and Poland, in the 1930-50s immigrants came from Spain and Portugal. Since the 1960s however, the greatest waves of immigrants have been from former French colonies, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. Much of this recent immigration was initially economical, but many of these immigrants have remained in France, gained citizenship, estimates vary, but of the 60 million people living in France today, close to 4 million claim foreign origin. Eastern-European and North-African Jewish immigration to France largely began in the mid to late 19th century, in 1872, there was an estimated 86,000 Jews living in France, and by 1945 this would increase to 300,000. Many Jews integrated into French society, although French nationalism led to anti-Semitism in many quarters, since the 1960s, France has experienced a great deal of Jewish immigration from the Mediterranean and North Africa, and the Jewish population in France is estimated at around 600,000 today. By far the largest of these is Paris, at 2.1 million inhabitants, followed by Lille, Lyon, much of this urbanization takes place not in the traditional center of the cities, but in the suburbs that surround them. With immigration from countries, these cités have been the center of racial. Compounding the loss of regionalism is the role of the French capital, the post-war years saw the state take control of a number of French industries. The modern political climate has however been for increasing regional power, many French intellectuals welcomed the war to avenge the humiliation of defeat and loss of territory to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. A pacifist, was assassinated at the start of the war, Prime Minister Rene Viviani called for unity—for a Union sacrée --Which was a wartime truce between the right and left factions that had been fighting bitterly. However, war-weariness was a factor by 1917, even reaching the army. The soldiers were reluctant to attack, Mutiny was a factor as soldiers said it was best to wait for the arrival of millions of Americans, the economy was hurt by the German invasion of major industrial areas in the northeast

France in the twentieth century
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A French bayonet charge in World War I
France in the twentieth century
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President Chirac and United States President George W. Bush talk over issues during the 27th G8 summit, July 21, 2001.

31.
Free France
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It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa and it was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn merged with de Gaulles rival general Henri Girauds command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation. Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, the Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as a force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic. Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, the French Army of Africa switched allegiance to Free France, and this caused the Axis to occupy Vichy in reaction. On 1 August 1943, LArmée dAfrique was formally united with the Free French Forces to form LArmée française de la Liberation. By mid-1944, the forces of this army numbered more than 400,000, and they participated in the Normandy landings, the Free French government re-established a provisional republic after the liberation, preparing the ground for the Fourth Republic in 1946. Historically, an individual became Free French by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the arm of the Committee. In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice, postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this ministerial instruction of July 1953, only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940, between 27 May and 4 June, around 200,000 British soldiers and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from the beaches to safety in England. General Charles de Gaulle was a minister in the French cabinet during the Battle of France, as France was overwhelmed by the stunning German victory, he found himself part of a small group of politicians who argued against a negotiated surrender to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That same day, the new French President of the Council, former First World War Marshal Philippe Pétain, De Gaulle briefly travelled to Bordeaux to continue the fight but, realising that Pétain would surrender, he returned to London on 17 June. On 18 June, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio, urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis and she has a great empire behind her. Together with the British Empire, she can form a bloc that controls the seas and she may, like England, draw upon the limitless industrial resources of the United States. In Vichys case those reasons were compounded with ideas of a Révolution nationale about stamping out Frances republican heritage. On 22 June 1940, Marshall Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, followed by a one with Italy on 24 June. After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, despite de Gaulles call to continue the struggle, few French forces, at least initially, pledged their support

32.
Vichy France
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Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. In particular, it represents the southern, unoccupied Free Zone that governed the southern part of the country, from 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of France as a whole, Germany militarily occupied northern France. Thus, while Paris remained the de jure capital of France, following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy. The Vichy government remained in existence, but as a de facto client and it vanished in late 1944 when the Allies occupied all of France. After being appointed Premier by President Albert Lebrun, Marshal Pétain ordered the French Governments military representatives to sign an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, Pétain subsequently established an authoritarian regime when the National Assembly of the French Third Republic granted him full powers on 10 July 1940. At that point, the Third Republic was dissolved, calling for National Regeneration, the French Government at Vichy reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, with central planning a key feature. Labour unions came under government control. The independence of women was reversed, with a put on motherhood. Paris lost its status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and stressed virulent anti-Semitism, and, after June 1941, the French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory, but had effective full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern zone libre. It had limited and only civil authority in the zones under military occupation. The occupation was to be a state of affairs, pending the conclusion of the war. The French Government at Vichy never joined the Axis alliance, Germany kept two million French soldiers prisoner, carrying out forced labour. They were hostages to ensure that Vichy would reduce its forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food. French police were ordered to round up immigrant Jews and other such as communists. Public opinion in some quarters turned against the French government and the occupying German forces over time, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and resistance to them increased. Most of the legal French governments leaders at Vichy fled or were subject to show trials by the GPRF, thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local communists and the Resistance in so-called savage purges. The last of the French State exiles were captured in the Sigmaringen enclave by de Gaulles French 1st Armoured Division in April 1945, in 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a First World War hero, the victor of the battle of Verdun

Vichy France
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French prisoners of war are marched off under German guard, 1940
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Philippe Pétain meeting Hitler in October 1940.
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French colonial prisoner in German captivity, 1940. Black troops were treated worse than their white compatriots, and some of them were used for German anthropological and medical experiments.

33.
Provisional Government of the French Republic
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Its establishment marked the official restoration and re-establishment of a provisional French Republic assuring continuity with the defunct French Third Republic. As the wartime government of France in 1944-1945, its purposes were to handle the aftermath of the occupation of France. Its principal mission beside the war was to prepare the ground for a new order that resulted in the Fourth Republic. It was officially created by the CFLN on 3 June 1944, the day before Charles de Gaulle arrived in London from Algiers on Winston Churchills invitation, the CFLN itself had been created exactly one year earlier through the uniting of de Gaulles and Henri Girauds organisations. Among its foreign policy goals was to secure a French occupation zone in Germany and this was assured through a large military contribution on the western front. The unit under his command, barely above company size when it had captured the Italian fort, had grown into an armoured division. The spearhead of the Free French First Army that had landed in Provence was the I Corps and its leading unit, the French 1st Armoured Division, was the first Western Allied unit to reach the Rhône, the Rhine and the Danube. Along with the acceptance of the Marshall Plan, refused by countries who had fallen under the influence of the USSR, this marked the official beginning of the Cold War in these countries. It started decolonisation by recognising the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Front National was the political front of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans resistance movement. It also appointed commissioners to fulfill its aims, Vichy loyalists were put on trial by the GPRF in legal purges, and a number were executed for treason, among them Pierre Laval, Vichys prime minister in 1942-44. The Marshal Philippe Pétain, Chief of the French State and Verdun hero, was condemned to death. Thousands of collaborators were executed by local Resistance forces in so-called savage purges. The provisional government considered that the Vichy government had been unconstitutional, all statutes, laws, regulations and decisions by the Vichy government were thus made null and void. Collaborationist paramilitary and political organizations, such as the Milice and the Legionary Order Service, were also disbanded, the right to vote had been granted to women by the CFLN on 21 April 1944, and was confirmed by the GPRF with the 5 October 1944 decree. They went to the polls for the first time in the elections of 29 April 1945. It passed decisions about Social Security, and child benefits, laying the foundations of the state in France. In the dirigist spirit, it created large state-owned companies, for instance by nationalising Renault and founding electricity company EDF, another main objective of the GPRF under de Gaulle leadership was to give a voice to the people by organizing elections which took place on 21 October 1945. Becoming a constituent assembly, the elected parliament was charged with drafting a constitution for a new fourth republic

34.
French Fourth Republic
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The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II. France adopted the constitution of the Fourth Republic on 13 October 1946, the greatest accomplishments of the Fourth Republic were in social reform and economic development. In 1946, the government established a social security system that assured unemployment insurance, disability and old-age pensions. Moreover, the government proved unable to make decisions regarding decolonization of the numerous remaining French colonies. After a series of crises, most importantly the Algerian crisis of 1958, wartime leader Charles de Gaulle returned from retirement to preside over a transitional administration which was empowered to design a new French constitution. The Fourth Republic was dissolved by a referendum on 5 October 1958 which established the modern-day Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. After the liberation of France in 1944, the Vichy government was dissolved, Charles de Gaulle led the GPRF from 1944 to 1946. Meanwhile, negotiations took place over the new constitution, which was to be put to a referendum. De Gaulle advocated a system of government, and criticized the reinstatement of what he pejoratively called the parties system. He resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by Félix Gouin, the new constituent assembly included 166 MRP deputies,153 PCF deputies and 128 SFIO deputies, giving the tripartite alliance an absolute majority. Georges Bidault replaced Félix Gouin as the head of government, a new draft of the Constitution was written, which this time proposed the establishment of a bicameral form of government. Léon Blum headed the GPRF from 1946 to 1947, after a new legislative election in June 1946, the Christian democrat Georges Bidault assumed leadership of the Cabinet. This culminated in the establishment in the year of the Fourth Republic. The President of the Republic was given a symbolic role, although he remained chief of the French Army. The wartime damage was extensive and expectations of large reparations from defeated Germany largely failed, the United States helped revive the French economy with the Marshall Plan, 1948-1951, whereby it gave France $2.3 billion with no repayment. France was the second largest recipient after Britain, the total of all American grants and credits to France from 1946 to 1953, amounted to $4.9 billion. The terms of the Marshall Plan required a modernization of French industrial and managerial systems, free trade, after the expulsion of the Communists from the governing coalition, France joined the Cold War against Stalin, as expressed by becoming a founding member of NATO in April 1949

35.
French Fifth Republic
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The Fifth Republic, Frances current republican system of government, was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. De Gaulle, who was the first president elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a head of state. The Fifth Republic is Frances third-longest political regime, after the hereditary and feudal monarchies of the Ancien Régime, the trigger for the collapse of the French Fourth Republic was the Algiers crisis of 1958. France was still a power, although conflict and revolt had begun the process of decolonization. French West Africa, French Indochina, and French Algeria still sent representatives to the French parliament under systems of limited suffrage in the French Union, Algeria in particular, despite being the colony with the largest French population, saw rising pressure for separation from the Metropole. The situation was complicated by those in Algeria, such as white settlers, the Algerian War was not just a separatist movement but had elements of a civil war. Further complications came when a section of the French Army rebelled, Charles de Gaulle, who had retired from politics a decade before, placed himself in the midst of the crisis, calling on the nation to suspend the government and create a new constitutional system. The Fourth Republic suffered from a lack of consensus, a weak executive. With no party or coalition able to sustain a parliamentary majority, De Gaulle and his supporters proposed a system of strong presidents elected for seven-year terms. The President under the constitution would have executive powers to run the country in consultation with a prime minister whom he would appoint. These plans were approved by more than 80% of those who voted in the referendum of 28 September 1958, the new constitution was signed into law on 4 October 1958. Since each new constitution established a new republic, France moved from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic, the new constitution contained transitional clauses extending the period of rule by decree until the new institutions were operating. René Coty remained President of the Republic until the new president was proclaimed, on 21 December 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected President of France by an electoral college. The provisional constitutional commission, acting in lieu of the Constitutional Council, the new president began his office on that date, appointing Michel Debré as Prime Minister. The 1958 constitution also replaced the French Union with the French Community,1960 became known as the Year of Africa because of this wave of newly independent states. Algeria became independent on 5 July 1962, the president was initially elected by an electoral college, but in 1962 de Gaulle proposed that the president be directly elected by the citizens, and held a referendum on the change. Although the method and intent of de Gaulle in that referendum were contested by most political groups except for the Gaullists, the Constitutional Council declined to rule on the constitutionality of the referendum. Two major changes occurred in the 1970s regarding constitutional checks and balances, traditionally, France operated according to parliamentary supremacy, no authority was empowered to rule on whether statutes passed by Parliament respected the constitutional rights of the citizens

36.
Timeline of French history
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This is a timeline of French history, comprising important legal and changes and political events in France and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of France, see also the list of Frankish kings, French monarchs, and presidents of the French Republic and list of years in France. Category, Timelines of cities in France France Profile, Timeline, archived from the original on March 2009 – via University of North Carolina in Greensboro

Timeline of French history
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18th century

37.
Revolution
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Aristotle described two types of political revolution, Complete change from one constitution to another Modification of an existing constitution. Revolutions have occurred through history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions, scholarly debates about what does and does not constitute a revolution center on several issues. Several generations of scholarly thought on revolutions have generated many competing theories, the word revolucion is known in French from the 13th century, and revolution in English by the late fourteenth century, with regards to the revolving motion of celestial bodies. Revolution in the sense of representing abrupt change in an order is attested by at least 1450. Political usage of the term had been established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. The process was termed The Glorious Revolution, there are many different typologies of revolutions in social science and literature. One of several different Marxist typologies divides revolutions into pre-capitalist, early bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic, early proletarian, Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between a coup, a top-down seizure of power, a civil war, a revolt and a great revolution. Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include the social revolutions, proletarian or communist revolutions, failed or abortive revolutions, the term revolution has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed in society, culture, philosophy and technology much more than political systems, some can be global, while others are limited to single countries. One of the examples of the usage of the word revolution in such context is the Industrial Revolution. Note that such revolutions also fit the slow revolution definition of Tocqueville, a similar example is the Digital Revolution. Perhaps most often, the revolution is employed to denote a change in socio-political institutions. Jeff Goodwin gives two definitions of a revolution, political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many social sciences, particularly sociology, political sciences and history. Scholars of revolutions, like Jack Goldstone, differentiate four current generations of scholarly research dealing with revolutions, the scholars of the first generation such as Gustave Le Bon, Charles A. Second generation theorists sought to develop detailed theories of why and when revolutions arise and they can be divided into three major approaches, psychological, sociological and political. The works of Ted Robert Gurr, Ivo K. Feierbrand, Rosalind L. Feierbrand, James A. Geschwender, David C. Schwartz, the second group, composed of academics such as Chalmers Johnson, Neil Smelser, Bob Jessop, Mark Hart, Edward A. As in the school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium

38.
Colour revolution
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The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East. Some observers have called the events a revolutionary wave, the origins of which can be traced back to the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, participants in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance, also called civil resistance. These movements generally adopted a colour or flower as their symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role of non-governmental organisations, such movements have had a measure of success, as for example in the former Yugoslavias Bulldozer Revolution, in Georgias Rose Revolution, and in Ukraines Orange Revolution. Some events have been called color revolutions but are different from the cases in certain basic characteristics. Examples include Lebanons Cedar Revolution, and Kuwaits Blue Revolution, government figures in Russia, such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have stated that colour revolutions are a new form of warfare. President Putin said that Russia must prevent colour revolutions, We see what tragic consequences the wave of so-called color revolutions led to, for us this is a lesson and a warning. We should do everything necessary so that nothing ever happens in Russia. A peaceful demonstration by students was attacked by the police –, the first of these was Otpor. in Serbia, which was founded at Belgrade University in October 1998 and began protesting against Miloševic during the Kosovo War. Most of them were veterans of anti-Milošević demonstrations such as the 1996-97 protests. Many of its members were arrested or beaten by the police, despite this, during the presidential campaign in September 2000, Otpor launched its Gotov je campaign that galvanised Serbian discontent with Miloševic and resulted in his defeat. Members of Otpor have inspired and trained members of related student movements including Kmara in Georgia, Pora in Ukraine, Zubr in Belarus and these groups have been explicit and scrupulous in their practice of non-violent resistance as advocated and explained in Gene Sharps writings. An article published 2016-5-8 claims, A variation of containment seeks to press China on human rights and he added that the Armenian revolution will be peaceful but not have a colour. A number of movements were created in Azerbaijan in mid-2005, inspired by the examples of both Georgia and Ukraine, a youth group, calling itself Yox. declared its opposition to governmental corruption. The leader of Yox. said that unlike Pora or Kmara, he wants to not just the leadership. The Yox movement chose green as its colour, the spearhead of Azerbaijans attempted colour revolution was Yeni Fekir, a youth group closely aligned with the Azadlig Bloc of opposition political parties. In November 2005 protesters took to the streets, waving flags and banners. On that day, the International Crimes Tribunal had sentenced Mollah to life in prison after he was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes, later demands included banning the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party from politics including election and a boycott of institutions supporting the party

Colour revolution
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Colour revolutions map

39.
Nonviolent revolution
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Nonviolent revolutions in the 20th century became more successful and more common, especially in the 1980s as Cold War political alliances which supported status quo governance waned. The use of forms of unofficial exchange of information, including by samizdat. Two major revolutions during the 1980s strongly influenced political movements that followed, the first was the 1986 People Power Revolution, in the Philippines from which the term people power came to be widely used, especially in Hispanic and Asian nations. In December 1989, inspired by the anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, in 1990, dissidents in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic started civil resistance against the government, but were initially crushed by Red Army in the Black January massacre. The beginnings of the nonviolence movement lie in the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Some have argued that a nonviolent revolution would require fraternisation with military forces, a peaceful revolution or bloodless coup is an overthrow of a government that occurs without violence. If the revolutionists refuse to use violence, it is known as a nonviolent revolution, if the revolutionists are willing to use force, but the loyalists negotiate or surrender to divert armed conflict, it is called a bloodless war. Peaceful revolutions that have occurred are the Bloodless Revolution of 1688 in United Kingdom, the People Power Revolution of 1986 in the Philippines, one theory of democracy is that its main purpose is to allow peaceful revolutions. The idea is that majorities voting in elections approximate the result of a coup, in 1962, John F. Kennedy famously said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. George Lakey in his 1973 book and in his 1976 A Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution, stage 1 - Cultural Preparation or Conscientization, Education, training and consciousness raising of why there is a need for a nonviolent revolution and how to conduct a nonviolent revolution. Stage 2 - Building Organizations, As training, education and consciousness raising continues, affinity groups or nonviolent revolutionary groups are organized to provide support, maintain nonviolent discipline, organize and train other people into similar affinity groups and networks. Stage 3 - Confrontation, Organized and sustained campaigns of picketing, strikes, sit-ins, marches, boycotts, die-ins, blockades to disrupt business as usual in institutions, by putting ones body on the line nonviolently the rising movement stops the normal gears of government and business. Stage 4 - Mass Non Cooperation, Similar affinity groups and networks of affinity groups around the country and world, stage 5 - Developing Parallel Institutions to take over functions and services of government and commerce. Gene Sharp, who influenced many in the Arab Spring revolutions, has documented and described over 198 different methods of nonviolent action that nonviolent revolutionaries might use in struggle. He argues that no government or institution can rule without the consent of the governed or oppressed as that is the source of nonviolent power, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. argued this as well. 1930 – Salt Satyagraha in India in an attempt to overthrow British colonial rule 1968 – The Prague Spring, the Revolutions of 1989, Even though many of these revolutions did not take place entirely in 1989, they are usually grouped together as such. 1980–1989 – The Solidarity movement in April marshals popular resistance to communist rule, 1987–1989/1991 – The Singing Revolution – a cycle of singing mass demonstrations, followed by a living chain across the Baltic states, known as the Baltic Way. 1989 – The bloodless revolution in Bulgaria that resulted in the downfall of the communist government,1990 – The Golaniad – a protest in Romania in April by Bucharest students who demanded a non-communist government

Nonviolent revolution
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Over 100,000 protesters took part in a pro-democracy march on 22 February 2011.

40.
Permanent revolution
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Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical, Trotsky put forward his conception of permanent revolution as an explanation of how socialist revolutions could occur in societies that had not achieved advanced capitalism. Part of his theory is the impossibility of socialism in one country. Second, that the proletariat can and must, therefore, seize social, economic, Marx first used the phrase in the following passage from The Holy Family. He wrote, Napoleon presented the last battle of revolutionary terror against the society which had been proclaimed by this same Revolution. He decided to recognise and protect this basis and he was no terrorist with his head in the clouds. Yet at the time he still regarded the state as an end in itself and civil life only as a treasurer. He perfected the terror by substituting permanent war for permanent revolution and he fed the egoism of the French nation to complete satiety but demanded also the sacrifice of bourgeois business, enjoyments, wealth, etc. whenever this was required by the political aim of conquest. His scorn of industrial hommes daffaires was the complement to his scorn of ideologists, in his home policy, too, he combated bourgeois society as the opponent of the state which in his own person he still held to be an absolute aim in itself. Thus he declared in the State Council that he would not suffer the owner of estates to cultivate them or not as he pleased. Thus, too, he conceived the plan of subordinating trade to the state by appropriation of roulage, French businessmen took steps to anticipate the event that first shook Napoleons power. Paris exchange-brokers forced him by means of an artificially created famine to delay the opening of the Russian campaign by two months and thus to launch it too late in the year. According to Marx, he did this by suppressing the liberalism of bourgeois society, and he did it because he saw the state as an end in itself, thus, he substituted permanent war for permanent revolution. The final two sentences, however, show that the bourgeoisie did not give up hope, but continued to pursue their interests. This tells us that, for Marx, permanent revolution involves a revolutionary class continuing to push for, by 1849, Marx and Engels were able to quote the use of the phrase by other writers, suggesting that it had achieved some recognition in intellectual circles. Marxs most famous use of the permanent revolution is his March 1850 Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League. His audience is the proletariat in Germany, faced with the prospect that the petty-bourgeois democrats will for the moment acquire a predominant influence – i. e. temporary political power, in the remainder of the text, Marx outlines his proposal that the proletariat make the revolution permanent. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the disadvantage of the proletariat

41.
Boycott
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The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior. Sometimes, a boycott can be a form of consumer activism, when a similar practice is legislated by a national government, it is known as a sanction. As harvests had been poor that year, Lord Erne offered his tenants a ten percent reduction in their rents, in September of that year, protesting tenants demanded a twenty five percent reduction, which Lord Erne refused. Boycott then attempted to evict eleven tenants from the land, while Parnells speech did not refer to land agents or landlords, the tactic was first applied to Boycott when the alarm was raised about the evictions. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated – his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail. The concerted action taken against him meant that Boycott was unable to hire anyone to harvest the crops in his charge, eventually 50 Orangemen from Cavan and Monaghan volunteered to do the work. This protection ended up costing far more than the harvest was worth, after the harvest, the boycott was successfully continued. Within weeks Boycotts name was everywhere, the New York Tribune reporter, James Redpath, first wrote of the boycott in the international press. The Irish author, George Moore, reported, Like a comet the verb boycott appeared and it was used by The Times in November 1880 as a term for organized isolation. According to an account in the book The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland by Michael Davitt, john OMalley of County Mayo to signify ostracism applied to a landlord or agent like Boycott. The Times first reported on November 20,1880, The people of New Pallas have resolved to boycott them, the Daily News wrote on December 13,1880, Already the stoutest-hearted are yielding on every side to the dread of being Boycotted. By January of the year, the word was being used figuratively. She Boycotted London from Kew to Mile End, girlcott is a portmanteau of girl and boycott intended to focus on the rights or actions of women. The term was coined in 1968 by American track star Lacey ONeal during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, speaking for black women athletes, she advised that the group would not girlcott the Olympic Games, because female athletes were still focused on being recognized. It also appeared in Time magazine in 1970, and was used by retired tennis player Billie Jean King in reference to Wimbledon. The term girlcott was revived in 2005 by women in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania protesting what they said were sexist, during the 1973 oil crisis, the Arab countries enacted a crude oil embargo against the West. The first Olympic boycott was in the 1956 Summer Olympics with several countries boycotting the games for different reasons, iran also has an informal Olympic boycott against participating against Israel, and Iranian athletes typically bow out or claim injuries when pitted against Israelis. A boycott is typically a one-time affair intended to correct a single wrong. g

42.
Civil disobedience
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Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law, Civil disobedience is sometimes, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. One of its earliest massive implementations was brought about by Egyptians against the British occupation in the 1919 Revolution, Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have rebelled against what they deem to be unfair laws. She gives a speech in which she tells him that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. She is not at all afraid of the death he threatens her with and it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent protest. A version was taken up by the author Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience, gandhis Satyagraha was partially influenced and inspired by Shelleys nonviolence in protest and political action. In particular, it is known that Gandhi would often quote Shelleys Masque of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India, Thoreaus 1848 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled Resistance to Civil Government, has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, in the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican–American War. He writes, If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated, public and typically peaceful resistance to public power would remain an integral tactic in modern American minority-rights politics. Henry David Thoreaus 1849 essay Resistance to Civil Government was eventually renamed Essay on Civil Disobedience, after his landmark lectures were published in 1866, the term began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico. Thus, by the time Thoreaus lectures were first published under the title Civil Disobedience, in 1866, four years after his death and it has been argued that the term civil disobedience has always suffered from ambiguity and in modern times, become utterly debased. Marshall Cohen notes, It has been used to everything from bringing a test-case in the federal courts to taking aim at a federal official. LeGrande writes that the formulation of a single all-encompassing definition of the term is extremely difficult, in reviewing the voluminous literature on the subject, the student of civil disobedience rapidly finds himself surrounded by a maze of semantical problems and grammatical niceties. Like Alice in Wonderland, he finds that specific terminology has no more meaning than the individual orator intends it to have. He encourages a distinction between lawful protest demonstration, nonviolent civil disobedience, and violent civil disobedience, the resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay. When I saw the title of Thoreaus great essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers, but I found that even Civil Disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase Civil Resistance, often there is an expectation to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities

43.
Civil war
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The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources. Most modern civil wars involve intervention by outside powers, according to Patrick M. Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half-year average of the 1900–1944 period. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century while there were over 20 concurrent civil wars close to the end of the Cold War. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, the Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997,104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007. The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term civil war and this includes civil wars, however no specific definition of civil war is provided in the text of the Conventions. That the legal Government is obliged to have recourse to the military forces against insurgents organized as military. That the insurgents have an organization purporting to have the characteristics of a State and that the insurgent civil authority exercises de facto authority over the population within a determinate portion of the national territory. That the armed forces act under the direction of an authority and are prepared to observe the ordinary laws of war. That the insurgent civil authority agrees to be bound by the provisions of the Convention, scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war, a comprehensive study of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions, the study found that statistically switching the size of a countrys diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war. Opportunity cost of rebellion Higher male secondary school enrollment, per capita income, the study interpreted these three factors as proxies for earnings forgone by rebellion, and therefore that lower forgone earnings encourage rebellion

44.
Class conflict
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The view that the class struggle provides the lever for radical social change for the majority is central to the work of Karl Marx and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. In the past the term Class conflict was a term used mostly by socialists, from this point of view, the social control of production and labor is a contest between classes, and the division of these resources necessarily involves conflict and inflicts harm. It can involve ongoing low-level clashes, escalate into massive confrontations, however, in more contemporary times this term is striking chords and finding new definition amongst capitalistic societies in the United States and other Westernized countries. This was only a potential, and class struggle was, he argued, not always the only or decisive factor in society, by contrast, Marxists argue that class conflict always plays the decisive and pivotal role in the history of class-based hierarchical systems such as capitalism and feudalism. Marxists refer to its overt manifestations as class war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the class is viewed by them as inevitable under plutocratic capitalism. Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of production and distribution. It is well documented since at least European Classical Antiquity and the popular uprisings in late medieval Europe. One of the earliest analysis of these conflicts is Friedrich Engels The Peasant War in Germany, one of the earliest analyses of the development of class as the development of conflicts between emergent classes is available in Peter Kropotkins Mutual Aid. In this work, Kropotkin analyzes the disposal of goods after death in pre-class or hunter-gatherer societies, chris Hedges wrote a column for Truthdig called Lets Get This Class War Started, which was a play on Pinks song Lets Get This Party Started. And I think that can go on for so long without there being more and more outbreaks of what used to be called class struggle. The particular implementation of government programs which may seem purely humanitarian, such as disaster relief, in the USA class conflict is often noted in labor/management disputes. Although Thomas Jefferson led the United States as president from 1801–1809 and is considered one of the founding fathers, among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep and this is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention, do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN, Its class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldnt be. In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times, Buffett stated that here’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the class, that’s making war. Later Warren gave away more than half of his fortune to charitable causes through a developed by himself

45.
Demonstration (protest)
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Actions such as blockades and sit-ins may also be referred to as demonstrations. Demonstrations can be nonviolent or violent, or can begin as nonviolent, sometimes riot police or other forms of law enforcement become involved. In some cases this may be in order to try to prevent the protest from taking place at all, in other cases it may be to prevent clashes between rival groups, or to prevent a demonstration from spreading and turning into a riot. Demonstrations are a form of activism, usually taking the form of a gathering of people in a rally or walking in a march. Thus, the opinion is demonstrated to be significant by gathering in a associated with that opinion. Demonstrations can be used to show a viewpoint regarding a public issue, a demonstration is usually considered more successful if more people participate. There are many types of demonstrations, including a variety of elements and these may include, Marches, in which a parade demonstrate while moving along a set route. Rallies, in which people gather to listen to speakers or musicians, picketing, in which people surround an area. Nudity, in which they protest naked - here the antagonist may give in before the demonstration happens to avoid embarrassment, Demonstrations are sometimes spontaneous gatherings, but are also utilized as a tactical choice by movements. They often form part of a campaign of nonviolent resistance. Demonstrations are usually physical gatherings, but virtual or online demonstrations are certainly possible, topics of demonstrations often deal with political, economic, and social issues. Clashes between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators may turn violent, government-organized demonstrations are demonstrations which are organized by a government. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Peoples Republic of China, Republic of Cuba, sometimes the date or location chosen for the demonstration is of historical or cultural significance, such as the anniversary of some event that is relevant to the topic of the demonstration. Locations are also chosen because of some relevance to the issue at hand. Protest marches and demonstrations are a nonviolent tactic. They are thus one tactic available to proponents of strategic nonviolence, some demonstrations and protests can turn, at least partially, into riots or mob violence against objects such as automobiles and businesses, bystanders and the police. Police and military authorities often use force or less-lethal weapons, such as tasers, rubber bullets, pepper spray. Sometimes violent situations are caused by the preemptive or offensive use of weapons which can provoke, destabilize

46.
Guerrilla warfare
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The term, the diminutive form of war in Spanish, is usually translated as little war, and the word, guerrilla, has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero if male, the term guerrilla was used in English as early as 1809, to refer to the fighters, and also to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the style of warfare. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, guerrillas usually carries positive connotations, and is often used by such fighters themselves and by their sympathizers, while their foes in many cases call them terrorists. Making an objective definition of the difference between a guerrilla and a terrorist has proven a difficult task, the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are preferred targets. All of that is to weaken the strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe, however, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves, at least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War with providing instruction in such tactics to Mao. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare and this directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics were employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. Evidence of conventional warfare, on the hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt. Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, because of the innovative tactics he used during his command, he made himself the name of Terror Romanorum. A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency operation involves actions taken by the government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it. Counter-insurgency operations are common during war, occupation and armed rebellions, the two most influential of scholars of counter-insurgency have been Westerners whose job it had been to fight insurgents. Robert Thompson fought during the Malayan Emergency and David Galula fought during the Algerian War, together these officers advocated multi-pronged strategies to win over the civilian population to the side of the counter-insurgent. The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert of the Malayan Emergency, thompsons underlying assumption was that the counter-insurgent was committed to improving the rule of law and bettering local governance

47.
Insurgency
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An insurgency is a rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. The nature of insurgencies is an ambiguous concept, where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be viewed as an insurgency if a state of belligerency exists between one or more sovereign states and rebel forces. When insurgency is used to describe a movements unlawfulness by virtue of not being authorized by or in accordance with the law of the land, criticisms of widely held ideas and actions about insurgency started to occur in works of the 1960s, they are still common in recent studies. Sometimes there may be one or more simultaneous insurgencies occurring in a country, the Iraq insurgency is one example of a recognized government versus multiple groups of insurgents. Other historic insurgencies, such as the Russian Civil War, have been rather than a straightforward model made up of two sides. During the Angolan Civil War there were two sides, MPLA and UNITA. At the same time, there was another separatist movement for the independence of the Cabinda region headed up by FLEC, if there is a rebellion against the authority and those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents, the rebellion is an insurgency. However, not all rebellions are insurgencies, as a state of belligerency may exist between one or more states and rebel forces. When insurgency is used to describe a movements unlawfulness by virtue of not being authorized by or in accordance with the law of the land, its use is neutral. The use of the term insurgency recognizes the political motivation of those who participate in an insurgency, if an uprising has little support, such a resistance may be described as brigandry and those who participate as brigands. The distinction on whether an uprising is an insurgency or a belligerency has not been as clearly codified as many other covered by the internationally accepted laws of war for two reasons. The dispute resulted in a compromise wording being included in the Hague Conventions known as the Martens Clause from the diplomat who drafted the clause. The United States Department of Defense defines it as this, An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a government through use of subversion. The United States counterinsurgency Field Manual, This definition does not consider the morality of the conflict, or the different viewpoints of the government and it is focused more on the operational aspects of the types of actions taken by the insurgents and the counter-insurgents. The Department of Defenses definition focuses on the type of violence employed towards specified ends and this characterization fails to address the argument from moral relativity that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The French expert on Indochina and Vietnam, Bernard Fall, who wrote Street Without Joy, insurgency has been used for years in professional military literature. Under the British, the situation in Malaya as often called the Malayan insurgency or the Troubles in Northern Ireland, each had different specifics but shared the property of an attempt to disrupt the central government by means considered illegal by that government. North points out, however, that insurgents today need not be part of an organized movement, Some are networked with only loose objectives

48.
Nonviolent resistance
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This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group. It is largely but wrongly taken as synonymous with civil resistance, each of these terms has its distinct merits and also quite different connotations and commitments. The modern form of non-violent resistance was popularised and proven to be effective by the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi in his efforts to gain independence from the British Empire, there are hundreds of books and papers on the subject — see Further reading below. From 1966 to 1999, nonviolent civic resistance played a role in 50 of 67 transitions from authoritarianism. Recently, nonviolent resistance has led to the Rose Revolution in Georgia, current nonviolent resistance includes the Jeans Revolution in Belarus, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, and the fight of the Cuban dissidents. Many movements which promote philosophies of nonviolence or pacifism have pragmatically adopted the methods of nonviolent action as a way to achieve social or political goals. Nonviolent action differs from pacifism by potentially being proactive and interventionist, clayborne Carson, In Struggle, SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press,1981, mineola, NY, Dover Publications,2001, orig. Gene Sharp, Making Europe Unconquerable, The Potential of Civilian-Based Deterrence and Defence, united Kingdom, Taylor & Francis,1985. ISBN 978-0-85066-336-5/ Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Michael Bröning, The Politics of Change in Palestine. London, Pluto Press,2011, Part 5, judith Hand, A Future Without War, The Strategy of a Warfare Transition. San Diego, CA, Questpath Publishing,2006, Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand. London, Penguin Books,2003, pp 219–20,222, 247–8, mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence, The History of a Dangerous Idea. New York, Modern Library / Random House,2006, david McReynolds, A Philosophy of Nonviolence. Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, eds, civil Resistance and Power Politics, The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. Oxford, England, Oxford University Press,2009, adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy and Timothy Garton Ash, eds. Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring, Triumphs and Disasters, Oxford, England, Oxford University Press,2016. Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World, Power, Nonviolence, New York, Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt and Company,2003

49.
Protest
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A protest is an expression of bearing witness on behalf of an express cause by words or actions with regard to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Various forms of self-expression and protest are sometimes restricted by policy, economic circumstances, religious orthodoxy, social structures. One state reaction to protests is the use of riot police, observers have noted an increased militarization of protest policing, with police deploying armored vehicles and snipers against the protesters. A protest can itself sometimes be the subject of a counter-protest, in such a case, counter-protesters demonstrate their support for the person, policy, action, etc. that is the subject of the original protest. In some cases, these protesters can violently clash, unaddressed protests may grow and widen into civil resistance, dissent, activism, riots, insurgency, revolts, and political and/or social revolution. 2013 through Feb.2014 Black Lives Matter 2016 South Korean protests 2017 Jallikattu protests Dakota Access Pipeline protests A protest can take many forms, the Dynamics of Collective Action project and the Global Nonviolent Action Database are two of the leading data collection efforts attempting to capture protest events. Reference to speeches, speakers, singing, preaching, often verified by indication of sound equipment of PA, ordinarily will include worship services, speeches, briefings. March, Reference to moving from one location to another, to be distinguished from rotating or walking in a circle with picket signs which by definition, but also no reference to sound systems or to marches, it may well be a vigil. Most vigils have banners, placards, or leaflets so that people passing by, despite silence from participants, picket, The modal activity is picketing, there may be references to picket line, to informational picketing, holding signs, carrying signs and walking around in a circle). Symbolic display, e. g. Menorah, Creche Scene, graffiti, cross burnings, signs, standing displays Attack by instigators Ethnic group victim of physical attack, boundary motivating attack is other groups identity, as in gay-bashing, lynching. Can also include verbal attack and/or threats, too, Riot, melee, mob violence, Large-scale, use of violence by instigators against persons, property, police, or buildings separately or in combination, lasting several hours. Strike, slow down and sick-ins employee work protest of any kind, Regular air strike through failure of negotiations, boycott, Organized refusal to buy or use a product or service, rent strikes. Press conference, If specifically named as such in report, could involve disclosure of information to educate the public or influence various decision-makers. Organization formation announcement or meeting announcement, meeting or press conference to announce the formation of a new organization, conflict, attack or clash, no instigator, This includes any boundary conflict in which no instigator can be identified, i. e. black/white conflicts, abortion/anti-abortion conflicts. Lawsuit, legal maneuver by social movement organization or group The Global Nonviolent Action database uses Gene Sharps classification of 198 methods of nonviolent action, there is considerable overlap with the Dynamics of Collective Action repertoire, although the GNA repertoire includes more specific tactics. Together, the two projects help define tactics available to protesters and document instances of their use, thomas Ratliff and Lori Hall have devised a typology of six broad activity categories of the protest activities described in the Dynamics of Collective Action project. Literal, symbolic, aesthetic and sensory - Artistic, dramaturgical, use of images, objects, graphic arts, musical performances, or vocal/auditory exhibitions

Protest
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Demonstration against the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the Rio+20 conference in Brazil, June 2012
Protest
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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Protest
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A working class political protest in Greece calling for the boycott of a bookshop after an employee was fired, allegedly for her political activism
Protest
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Anti-nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo. Sixty thousand people marched chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.